Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: vyper on January 25, 2005, 01:03:17 pm
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https://freeinternetpress.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2806
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Jeez! "...even if the smoking takes place after-hours, or at home." Free world, eh?
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Though the idea of companies paying for their workers health care seems... odd... it strikes me as a reasonable policy if they are, in fact, doing that.
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You could always givbe them the option of choosing to leave the companies Healthcare system and paying for your own Healthcare, by all rights, sacking them for it is a bit vicious.
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It's getting out of control now. So :thepimp: :thepimp: :thepimp: :ha: ;7
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I'm with Flip. This is moronic. Yes, the company has a right to, I don't know, limit the amount they pay for insurance, but to fire someone over smoking? If this was American, there's an anti-discrimination suit coming their way, I'd bet.
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There would be no discrimination suit because this would not fall under a protected class under ADA. If these were alcholics, and they were recovering they, would be protected under ADA. But in the case of alcholism, if they relapse they are no longer protected.
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Pretty soon, everything will be banned everywhere, then I emigrate to Mars...
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No, emigration will be banned :p
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The concept makes sense to me... smoking does harm you. Why would companies want to pay more than they could get away with on their health insurance? Don't like that idea.. well stop smoking then!
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The concept is sound, yes, but the execution is cut-throat. If the company is losing money on paying extra healthcare for smokers, and the chances are they pay a block amount per employee, regardless of whether they smoke or not, I mean, if they need to test their employees, then how would the Medical Insurers know if they smoked or not?
If it is on an individual basis, then the last option should be to drive you employee away. As I say, maybe add a clause to the contract that the company is not obliged to pay Healthcare for employees who refuse to take a smoking test, or who smoke..
Remember, these people were sacked for refusing to take a test, not for being smokers. Some of them may have been non-smokers who simply felt the company had no right to pry.
However, by adding the option of paying your own healthcare, you leave the worker some degree of freedom of choice, rather than 'Do it or We'll sack you', which is not a form of management I'd like to see return.
Edit : It also adds the incentive to quit smoking, because the company will start paying your medical fees for you again ;)
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Thunder, I love you and everything, but you're talking out of your ass. Lets weigh the priorities here. On one hand, you have the right of corporations to save a rather negligible amount of money by denying healthcare to the workers who's sweat and blood (figuratively of course) sustains the company, and on the other you have people's freedom to do whatsoever they please to their own body. Hmm, I wonder which one takes priority, its so hard to decide...oh wait, it isn't.
A less extreme, though still rather evil policy would be to simply not cover medical costs for any smoking related dieseses in those employees who do smoke. For example, a broken hip would still be covered, but lung cancer (if there is proof that it is a result of smoking and not something else) would not be. And to be honest, who is more evil? The man who costs the company money through smoking, or the company that refuses to cover a man dying of lung cancer (worst case scenario)??
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Do you know how annoying it is for fellow employees to take damn smoking breaks? It is unfair and ridiculous. I don't smoke, but don't get "smoke breaks." Frankly, employees that smoke don't give it their all either, because they are constantly trying to control their self imposed cravings.
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These people may only restrict their smoking to being at home, that's what the problem is.
If smoke breaks were banned, then fair enough, but to tell people that they cannot smoke in their own time is another matter.
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Yes, we should rid the world of all vice and unhealthy products, then everyone will be happy. And if people don't like it? Though ****, legislate. Such a lovely place to live it will be. And since when is "giving it your all" a thing to strive for?
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We wouldn't be free if we banned unhealthy living; we wouldn't be free either if companies were not allowed to fire employees. Additionally, a person doesn't have a right to a job and an employer doesn't have an obligation to hire.
As for giving it your all, you made these "poor victimized" smokers look like really hard workers and was pointing it out they could not really give it their all.
However, giving it your all is something known as a work ethic which, last I check is supposed to be a positive thing.
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Yeah, they can cut my health insurance because I smoke, as long as they pay me for the unpaid overtime I gave them over the last 15+ years....
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Assuming I've grasped the basic concept, the company does not have their premium increased directly for the medical expenses of the smoker, but due to the higher rate of going to hospitals and doctors, it would decrease the profit margin of the insurer. To compensate, the insurer would increase the premium payed by its users, leading to an indirect cost increase for the company.
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Originally posted by Rictor
On one hand, you have the right of corporations to save a rather negligible amount of money by denying healthcare to the workers who's sweat and blood (figuratively of course) sustains the company, and on the other you have people's freedom to do whatsoever they please to their own body. Hmm, I wonder which one takes priority, its so hard to decide...oh wait, it isn't.
What you have to realise is that while one does and should have the right to do whatever they wish to their own bodies, another right that everyone does and should have is the freedom to have their own response to that behaviour. If somebody is allowed to smoke, then I don't see it as being all that different from allowing someone to have an opinion (namely, smoking sucks and I don't want it in my workplace what I own).
Freedom of behaviour is all good and well, but so is freedom of opinion and the freedom to act on that opinion, when such actions do not impinge on the freedoms of others.
(Which, by the way, in case you were thinking it: no. Denying people employment because you don't like them isn't impinging on their freedom to smoke or indeed have a job. The freedom remains even if the circumstance does not. If you get that already - well, just... covering my tracks, you understand.)
(Not that I agree with the companies' view or anything, I don't mind smoking... just discussing things, is all.)
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It's the little things now, but give it a few years....
Think about the following in terms of insurance risk:
Gay men
Single mothers
Single fathers
Heavy drinkers
Depressives
People who sky-dive at weekends
Single clubber who drives a Porsche
Black men living in a White neighbourhood
Reservists
Hospital volunteers
People who drive
People who ride the train
etc. etc.
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The concept is just fine. You want healthcare? Good...stop shooting yourself in the foot every day. But the method to which they exact a penalty is wrong as well. Thats when stupidity comes into play. You get people smart about smoking and then you get people stupid about policy.
Can't win! :)
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While I don't like the anti-free world view of it, it does make sense, and smoking doesn't benefit anyone, it only hurts them. So what's the point of covering people who are willingly slowly killing themselves every single day?
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You mean can't lose?
Though I like how you classify all those who don't smoke as "smart" which presumably means that all those who do are dumb. You ought to stop looking at smoking from a health perspective, and start looking at it from a choice perspective. Just because something is unhealthy doesn't mean I should stop doing it and just because something is healthy doesn't mean I should start doing it.
(though as I said, I don't smoke.)
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About the same as sacking them, I would say. To be sacked you have to commit a 'gross misconduct'.
Whether you agree with smoking or not, whilst it is still legal to buy it in the local store, while the Government still states that it is a matter of choice for a person to smoke or not, then removing someone from their job for doing so is discrimintation against someone who is commiting no offence in the strict eyes of law.
If you want to do something oppressive to make people happy then go-ahead and do so, in 50 years they may thank you for it, but right now, they will hate your guts and call it a violation of freedom. However, for a company to take law into it's own hands, to consider it's right to sack employees for reasons which are not gross misconduct, then they are being oppressive, and vigilante to boot. Since when did companies have the right to define their own misconduct law, there is a firm framework defining 'sackable offences' and they would be on very shaky ground to define 'Smoking Tobacco at home' as being coverable.
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Rictor - no offence taken of course :) I guess my anti-smoking side is showing through. Several of my friends are.. heavy smokers. Normally this isn't an issue but from time to time I find myself sitting next to or between a couple of them in a pub. It's amongst the most unpleasent things I've ever endured... I leave with a headache and clothes that reek of smoking.
But enough bashing it. That's not the point of the thread.
Perhaps a better notion on the part of companies would be to severly cripple the health insurance of any high-risk catagories such as smokers and other parties that might willingly damage themselves either in body or mind.
Unfortunately - it's very hard to police this. Even smoking itself isn't clear cut... one man might smoke a single ciggarette at a party if the mood takes him, while another might be on a 10+ pack a day habbit and suffer serious mood swings when he's denied smoking.
This grey area has obvious connotations with health insurance.. for instance: does the man who smokes one at a party fall into the same catagory as non-smokers at this same party? They're passively smoking and therefore damage is being done after all...
And of course on top of it all, there is a certain amount of freedom of rights to this. Where does it stop? If I drink regularly at parties (which may eventually affect my liver) am I in the same risk catagory as a smoker? How do you evaluate it?
So of course it's a very grey area.. both in execution and in the way it affects peoples rights. Myself? I'm tainted toward anti-smoking but then I have drunk heavily and/or smoked cannabis before... so who am I to say for certain.
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Here's a better solution, with almost no chance of being implemented:
You pay X amount health insurance per month (deducted from wages). All the money from all the employees in a company (or if itsa huge company, a sub-section) is pooled. Whoever needs it, takes the money to pay for medical expenses. At the end of the year, whatever hasn't been used gets divided evendly, you get it back.
This creates a more humane situation, so it allows for grey areas and subtlties.
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The closest you have to that that I've seen are plans that allow employees to set aside a certain amount of wages, tax free, for their own personal expenses....
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There's a problem with that Rictor.. a big one if you don't mind me saying.
I am a perfectly healthy male.
You are suffering from terminal cancer and need regular treatment.
Bob smokes over a hundred packs a week and is a high risk of lunch cancer.
Mary has a terminal genetic desease and also requires regular medical aid.
Steves kidneys have failed and he requires dialysis (sp?).
Now, under your method - we'd all pay the same amount into this pool of money for health insurance. However yourself, Bob, Mary and Steve are all far more likely to claim on that money than I am because of your various health problems.
The problem being - is that fair on me? If I was in that situation I'd complain that it's positive discrimination against healthy people who effectively pay for the health treatment of their co-workers.
I hope you see where I'm coming from...
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And one day you end up in a major car crash and spend months in hospital at the expense of the firm.
That's like saying some people should pay less money towards the NHS because they're athletic, super fit.