I love Michigan! - Quit smoking or get fired!

BWhite · 2005-01-31 11:24:21

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtm … 86850]Link

CHICAGO (Reuters) - The owner of a Michigan company who forced his employees to either quit smoking or quit their jobs said on Wednesday he also wants to tell fat workers to lose weight.
A ban on tobacco use -- whether at home or at the workplace -- led four employees to quit their jobs last week at Okemos, Michigan-based Weyco Inc., which handles insurance claims.
The workers refused to take a mandatory urine test demanded of Weyco's 200 employees by founder and sole owner Howard Weyers, a demand that he said was perfectly legal.

One way to lower health insurance costs. :;):

If we stopped smoking and overeating, etc. . .

I suppose we really could lower health care costs without spending billions and trillions of dollars.

[Wild discussion encouraged]

clark · 2005-01-31 11:30:20

In similar news, the Amish have required that in-house surveillance camera's be installed into all Amish homes to ensure that no one is using electricity. The system is set so that any indications of electricity use will inform the head Amish council via email.

Palomar · 2005-01-31 11:32:35

*Yahoo! news had a similar article last week, but not related specifically to Michigan. Seems employers nation-wide are considering drastic measures as smoking employees go. Obese/overweight employees -weren't- mentioned in that article.

Employers can already screen for narcotics prior to and during employment.

I understand they want as safe a work environment as possible, and the cost of health insurance...but heck, most employers quit providing full-coverage insurance (entirely out of the company's pocket) by the late 1980s. So it seems the companies are doing a bit more complaining than they're entitled to do, considering the employee is hoofing a good portion of the policy payment.

God forbid you be imperfect somehow. Apparently some of us can only aspire...

--Cindy

clark · 2005-01-31 11:33:00

Due to the health benefits of circumcision, all men will be inspected for the procedure. Those found not to have been circumsized will be fired, or given the option of undergoing the procedure to retain their positions.

-Executive Order of the CEO of Suasage Industry, New America.

Cobra Commander · 2005-01-31 11:45:57

With everyone pays for everyone else health care and the precedent of drug screenings it was only a matter of time.

Of course I'm sure the insurance company in question won't be passing any savings on to their marks, er, customers.

clark · 2005-01-31 11:54:39

Oh nuts to all this. Dosen't this all strike you as a bridge too far?

Lemme see, yup, the work contract I signed allowed my employer to reach into my private life and tell me how to live. Sure, it's for our "own good". So is safe sex.

Mandatory condom use by our employers? Is that their place?

So homosexuals have a higher statistical chance of contracting AIDS- can't be homosexual to work there? Oh, wait, they are protected (in some places) by discrimination. The whole basis for their stance is that smokers are not protected like obese people.

And this from a Health Care company!

It seems this is a rather drastic action given that they could just as easily penalize people by upping their worker premuim's. You want to smoke, fine, pay up for the higher health care costs. Forcing them is just wrong and a violation of individual rights.

What's next? All Disney employee's have to be surgicaly lobotmized and have plastic surgery to maintain a 24 hour smile?

Another book, Jennifer Nation- when Corporation run our lives. Sweet.

Palomar · 2005-01-31 11:55:31

With everyone pays for everyone else health care and the precedent of drug screenings it was only a matter of time.
Of course I'm sure the insurance company in question won't be passing any savings on to their marks, er, customers.

*...and then there's the issue of companies and insurance agencies considering denying people coverage based upon genetic screening.

Long and well-documented family history of strokes, congestive heart failure, cancer? You'll be denied. Bad genes are YOUR fault.

It's been suggested and quibbled about (ethically speaking); but companies will be pushing for that next, in good earnest.

--Cindy

P.S.: Corporate America is hanging itself, the greedy swine.

Earthfirst · 2005-01-31 11:57:26

Cute, but manditory circumcisions would be clearly unlawful. Butchering males babes penises of an religous tradition is one thing but forcing other who belive the way to the devine is though an altered winnie, suasages, dicks, or firemen is forcing your belives on others and is not right. My dad told me that when I was born he made sur that the jew doctors din't get me with their little knives. Brisdes circumcision hurts a males heath because it is no longer protected by the force skin and is exposed to all shorts of stuff, Protect your putts you may need it some day.
Gehad industrys: To all workers, due to health issues any infudels that do not convert to islam will beheaded, filmed and put on the internet. Then your body hung from a brigde, rember fridays are causal so wear jeans and females a burka.
Allia barka, death to America!
Him talk about a hostal work environment, just be glad that we live in a christen nation! Praise be Thor!

ERRORIST · 2005-01-31 16:39:58

I hate Michigan!

http://washingtontimes.com/national/200 … -3268r.htm

Palomar · 2005-02-12 12:57:41

*Remember http://www.oldtimecandy.com/candy-cigarettes.htm]candy cigarettes? My sister and I would purchase them occasionally at the 5-and-dime as kids.

And I remember bubblegum cigars.

Now apparently the candy cigarettes are called "candy sticks" (oh, we must white-wash everything in this Politically Correct world...)

Our society went from freely selling items like these in the candy aisles of yesteryear to now threatening to fire people for not stopping smoking.

What brings this up is this morning my husband and I saw an item on the news about some guy getting canned (pardon the pun) for having been photographed hanging out with friends in a bar, drinking from a can of Budweiser beer. He works for Miller's.

He's not an executive, "just" an average payrolled worker. And he gets fired. The company says they didn't fire him because he was drinking Bud (how "coincidental"), but no reason was given either.

This nation just gets nuttier all the time, and it seems employers are growing increasingly abusive.

--Cindy

John Creighton · 2005-02-13 11:30:21

I don’t smoke but I don’t think that smokers should have to pay higher health permits. I don’t think it is the companies or insurance companies business if they smoke. I don’t even think they should have the right to do urine tests. I think that is an invasion of personal privacy. If an employee looks impaired then you have grounds to fire him. Why do you need a urine test in the first place?

edit: My girlfriend writes:

Why shouldn’t they pay higher insurance rates, they are more at risk of health problems and the second hand smoke they produce can cause other individuals to have health problems in the future, so they should have to pay more.

Cobra Commander · 2005-02-14 06:08:59

Employer-provided healthcare coverage is a fairly recent development and there is no inviolable reason that it has to be done that way.

Perhaps we'd all be better served finding a way to make it easier for people to pay for their own healthcare instead of propping up the illusion that they aren't paying for it.

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#1 2005-01-31 11:24:21

Re: I love Michigan! - Quit smoking or get fired!

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#3 2005-01-31 11:32:35

Re: I love Michigan! - Quit smoking or get fired!

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Re: I love Michigan! - Quit smoking or get fired!

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Re: I love Michigan! - Quit smoking or get fired!

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Re: I love Michigan! - Quit smoking or get fired!

#8 2005-01-31 11:57:26

Re: I love Michigan! - Quit smoking or get fired!

#9 2005-01-31 16:39:58

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#10 2005-02-12 12:57:41

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