Light Up at Home, Lose Your Job

I previously posted on some fundamental confusions caused by having employers pay directly for their employees health insurance. One was employers thinking that such payments entitle them to control their employees' health-related behavior, even off the job.
The Detroit News just reported that Weyco, ironically a medical benefits adminstration firm, fired four workers because they refused to be tested to see if they were smoking during off hours. The company already had stopped hiring smokers, and fined workers who continued to smoke. Weyco President Howard Weyers said his motivation included "saving money on the company's own insurance claims," according to Reuters. An editorialist also quoted him as saying, "I don't want to pay for the results of smoking." Next on his agenda, again according to Reuters, is to "tell fat workers to lose weight or else."
The trend is spreading locally in Michigan, as Kalamazoo Community College is refusing to hire smokers to "reduce health care claims by 10 percent," per Sandy Bohnet, its Vice President for Human Resources.
The federal tax laws allow companies, but not individuals to deduct health insurance payments, so employers take money that could have added to employees' salaries to pay directly for their health insurance. Because they "pay" for employees' health insurance, some employers now seem to think they own their employees' bodies.
As a physician, I am no fan of smoking, but firing employees just because they smoke (off the job) just adds insult to injury. Of course, more rational tax laws could let individuals could make their own decisions about health insurance and health-related behavior, and be the ones responsible for their actions.