Refusing to Hire Smokers to Reduce Health Insurance Costs

Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, is considering whether to stop hiring anyone who smokes, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. The reason is to save health insurance costs. The Chairman of the County Commissioners, James Matthews, said, "if we can cut down health care cost by not hiring smokers, let's do it. This is not about taking away anything from anybody."
This is another example of the confusions resulting from having employers pay for their employees health insurance (presumably with money that would otherwise have increased their salaries). A small, but growing number of employers obviously assumes that this practice, which arises from history and tax law, gives them a license to either control their employees behavior or exclude employees whose private behavior raises the risk of bad health outcomes.
Of course, if one takes this to the logical extreme, think of all the sorts of people an employer could refuse to hire on the grounds that their private behavior increases their health risks....