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I'm all for this and for raising insurance premiums for unhealthy lifestyles.
Yes, I'm tired of paying for people who abuse their bodies.
There are too many people today abusing their bodies by spending an inordinate amount of time on the Internet/Smartphones, and they should be included! Those that don't get the required 10,000 steps a day!
Screening you for nicotine usage?
We're still in this luxurious period for employers, with an excess of applicants per job, and until another boom time arrives, like back in 2005-2006, not enough applicants per job, employers can demand just about anything, and get away with it!
Theoretically and real world are two very different things. I've gotten sick once in the past two years. Missed one day of work. Don't know many people who can say that. My non-smoking coworkers? They took off at least once every two weeks because they were lazy sacks of poop. My supervisor didn't smoke and she was sick literally every month. Obesity destroys health far more than the small percentage that smoking actually severely hurts.
When I applied for health insurance, at work, last Fall, it asked if I smoked. If so, you pay $50 more per month.
Curiously, they didn't ask for my weight! If I had said I weighed 400 or 500 pounds, I wouldn't have to pay that extra $50 a month!
Okay, so they just want more money from me for insurance when I haven't had to go to the doctor since I was 18. Many years of being healthy compared to all of my former non smoking coworkers who were at the doctor literally every month. Could I just say I'm using nicotine gum to quit, and that is why I tested positive? Remember, I'm in a state where it is unlawful to discriminate due to smoking outside of the work place and can't be used as a hiring decision.
I refuse to pay a lot more when I'm more healthy than 90% of the non smoking population. They should bother people about weight instead. In my state, they'd make a KILLING and it definitely causes 10x more problems in America as a whole. Or... they could just leave us all alone since healthcare profits are already in the billions. God forbid the CEO only has his 5 million dollar salary that year instead of 5.5
This kind of rule is big in health-care related jobs. From your personal experience, you're healthy than many nonsmokers, but the overwhelming data shows that smokers take more sick days, visit the doctor more often, and are hospitalized at a disproportionate rate, compared to nonsmokers. Instead of raising everyone's premiums to cover smokers, they're increasing premiums on smokers only, and in some cases ruling out smokers altogether. The latter, I will agree, can be perceived as discriminatory, as it's a legal substance. Same goes for those in states where marijuana is legal, but employers can still elect to not hire cannabis smokers.
We're still in this luxurious period for employers, with an excess of applicants per job, and until another boom time arrives, like back in 2005-2006, not enough applicants per job, employers can demand just about anything, and get away with it!
Excess meaning what exactly? I know of places that might receive only a dozen applicants.
Okay, so they just want more money from me for insurance when I haven't had to go to the doctor since I was 18. Many years of being healthy compared to all of my former non smoking coworkers who were at the doctor literally every month. Could I just say I'm using nicotine gum to quit, and that is why I tested positive? Remember, I'm in a state where it is unlawful to discriminate due to smoking outside of the work place and can't be used as a hiring decision.
I refuse to pay a lot more when I'm more healthy than 90% of the non smoking population. They should bother people about weight instead. In my state, they'd make a KILLING and it definitely causes 10x more problems in America as a whole. Or... they could just leave us all alone since healthcare profits are already in the billions. God forbid the CEO only has his 5 million dollar salary that year instead of 5.5
Insurance risks are calculated on aggregate data since that is more reliable than an individual's history with visiting a doctor. Since, statistically, smokers are less healthy, insurance rates are higher. You have to keep in mind that insurance is about risk spread across groups of people. Certain groups are more expensive than others.
If you feel that you won't have to go to a doctor, simply don't get your employer's insurance. Just choose to pay out of pocket. That way you can refuse to pay a lot more than other people, just as you wish.
This has nothing to do with the hardworking individual's salaries. People deserve to get paid whatever however much the owner wants to pay them.
Also, lying about using nicotine gum to quit when you are really using cigarettes would be fraudulent. Merely suggesting that is telling about the type of individual you are. Employers don't need criminals working for them.
Insurance risks are calculated on aggregate data since that is more reliable than an individual's history with visiting a doctor. Since, statistically, smokers are less healthy, insurance rates are higher. You have to keep in mind that insurance is about risk spread across groups of people. Certain groups are more expensive than others.
If you feel that you won't have to go to a doctor, simply don't get your employer's insurance. Just choose to pay out of pocket. That way you can refuse to pay a lot more than other people, just as you wish.
This has nothing to do with the hardworking individual's salaries. People deserve to get paid whatever however much the owner wants to pay them.
Also, lying about using nicotine gum to quit when you are really using cigarettes would be fraudulent. Merely suggesting that is telling about the type of individual you are. Employers don't need criminals working for them.
I understand why they assess the risk, but it is still faulty. Only thing about not having insurance is the risk of an unforeseen sickness such as being poisoned by something in the environment, or a car crash. One week in the hospital uninsured would leave you in debt forever.
I guarantee my background is clean. I've never even gotten a speeding ticket. Law abiding citizen here. Just not keen on letting the govt. screw me due to their fancy statistics that are wrong in many cases. They are making billions more profit each year and it won't stop until ALL of us are discriminated in some way.
Ever read the "then they came for me" story? A quick google search will pull it up.
I'm all for this and for raising insurance premiums for unhealthy lifestyles.
Yes, I'm tired of paying for people who abuse their bodies.
I couldn't agree more.
In the case of employers many pay at least a portion of health insurance premiums for their employees and it isn't uncommon to see premiums nearly double for smokers over non-smokers.
It's simple, if you smoke quit. If you have trouble quitting ask for help.
Edit: I know quitting is hard to do. I first started smoking as a teen in the army, drill sergeants say "smoke em if you got em" during breaks and if you didn't smoke they always found something else for the non-smokers to do and it was never a good thing.
In Vietnam cigarettes were free to field units... we would get a thousand packs at a time and they even provided packs of 5 cigarettes in our government issued C-Rations. Without paying any taxes cigarette companies figured this "good will gesture" of giving troops free cigarettes would come back ten fold once newly hooked troops, most in their early 20's, returned stateside.
I was one of them and quitting, 15 years now, was one of the hardest things I ever did but I am still hooked. Told my wife if the doctor ever told me I had a terminal disease the very first thing I would do is light up a Marlboro light. Nah, not really but it would be really close.
In the case of employers many pay at least a portion of health insurance premiums for their employees and it isn't uncommon to see premiums nearly double for smokers over non-smokers.
It's simple, if you smoke quit. If you have trouble quitting ask for help.
I want people to quit being obese and stop costing the healthcare industry (and taxpayers) 200 billion a year, but that isn't happening anytime soon. Far more than the cost of a smoker!
You can shame someone for their lifestyle, but be fair and shame the rest. Shame yourself for your own bad habits as well. Or we can decide to live and let live, because no one is perfect.
I understand why they assess the risk, but it is still faulty. Only thing about not having insurance is the risk of an unforeseen sickness such as being poisoned by something in the environment, or a car crash. One week in the hospital uninsured would leave you in debt forever.
It probably is faulty to some extent, but it is the most reliable method of assessing risk currently available in actuarial science.
You can get accidental insurance to cover car crashes.
Keep in mind that there are approximately 160,000 deaths by lung cancer per year and 90% of those cases were with people who were active smokers. (Compressed Mortality, 1999-2013 Request)
Quote:
Originally Posted by JobSeeker101
I guarantee my background is clean. I've never even gotten a speeding ticket. Law abiding citizen here. Just not keen on letting the govt. screw me due to their fancy statistics that are wrong in many cases. They are making billions more profit each year and it won't stop until ALL of us are discriminated in some way.
Ever read the "then they came for me" story? A quick google search will pull it up.
How, exactly, is the government making billions more profit each year?
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If I had said I weighed 400 or 500 pounds, I wouldn't have to pay that extra $50 a month!
