[IceFire]

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!

[Unknown Target]

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?

[Rictor]

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.)

[Flipside]

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.

[Fineus]

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.

[Rictor]

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.

[Grey Wolf]

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....

[Fineus]

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...

[vyper]

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.