They Can Kiss My Butt

Or the many butts I have created.  I am not trying to justify smoking, a particularly nasty habit, BUT it is not illegal.  Hiring and firing people based on behaviors not performed at the workplace and are not illegal is traveling down quite a slippery slope.

Butt Out

More after the jump

The company says it's acting for the good of its workers and to lower health care costs. But refusing to hire smokers, or firing them for lighting up in the privacy of their homes, crosses a line between promoting health and meddling in people's lives. If companies can dictate whether employees can smoke, why not dictate what they can eat, or bar them from sky diving? Obesity affects health costs. Dangerous activities do, too.

Much as you might abhor smoking, can you see a justification for disallowing people from engaging in perfectly legal activities away from work which does not affect their work performance?

In a rebuttal from the company own in question he says:

Not a Civil Right

Employment is not a right, either. Businesses can hire whomever they wish based on desirable skills and characteristics, so long as the selection factors are lawful.

Nor is health insurance a right, but it's darned expensive. Businesses generally need not provide it, and many don't, thanks to years of double-digit cost increases - and a big reason for those is self-destructive behavior by a small percentage of employees.

This starts to sound like businesses are going to be able to not hire you for pre-existing medical conditions because "gosh darn, but medical is expensive and it isn't a right you know."

Maybe we will not hire fat people due to the increased risk, or maybe older people since they get sick more.  Bah, this sort of thing makes me so angry!

•  When they ban stoooopid people

  from employment we'll cut way into the Republican base, no?

  by doorguy on Tue Feb 08, 2005 at 03:48:24 PM PDT

•  Reminds me of Snow Crash

  where the fundie wingnut fires a programmer for having aberrent sex (she gave her husband a blow job) in her own home.

  fucking ridiculous. Hell, I'd take up smoking just so I could throw the butts into this asshole's coffee.

  by Xray the Enforcer on Tue Feb 08, 2005 at 03:56:48 PM PDT

  •  Funny you should mention

    Snow Crash.  I am reading it right now.  Excellent book.

    by Sychotic1 on Tue Feb 08, 2005 at 04:01:25 PM PDT

  •  A 4

    For the Snow Crash reference .. but now I have to go read it again because I don't remember that.

    by Catriana on Tue Feb 08, 2005 at 04:02:16 PM PDT

    •  re

      I just wish i was on the beach from Count Zero right now...

      by cookiesandmilk on Tue Feb 08, 2005 at 04:42:00 PM PDT

•  This is a condition that

  can only exist in a country where there are more people than there are jobs.

  by nupstateny on Tue Feb 08, 2005 at 04:41:28 PM PDT

•  Stupid to fire smoker, but...

  The fact that employers are the health safety net in the US is absurd.  The right hates it because it lessens the profits of corporations, and the left (myself included!) because it puts a critical social function into the hands of organizations that pursue profit above all.

  IMO, there isn't a GOPer's chance in heaven that labor laws (re "at will" employment) will change.  And companies ARE getting murdered by health premiums.  So, expect further invasions of privacy in the name of reducing employer healthcare premiums.  Smoking, obesity, genetic markers, watching Sienfeld reruns... you name it.

  Sadly, I think the time to solve the healthcare crisis rationally, without mammoth expenses, was in the early 90's.  I seem to remember something coming up before Congress back then... <sigh>

  by Twin Planets on Tue Feb 08, 2005 at 05:44:13 PM PDT

•  Agree with you, BUT....

  The nihilist in me says that the health care system won't be fixed(read:single payer) until it gets worse.  It might even need to get a lot worse.  What do we have now, 50 million uninsured?  Well, maybe when we hit 75 or 100 million all the redneck hicks in this country will stop worrying about gays getting married and start wondering what we can do to get their uninsured sick kids to the doctor.

  If this knocks a lot of people off the rolls I'm all for it.  If we can knock fat people off the rolls next, let's do it.  I'd be especially in favor of knocking people off the rolls for genetic factors that are beyond their control.  Basically, the more people that don't have health coverage, and the more that the reasons they lack health coverage are beyond their control, I'm all in favor of it.  

  There's going to be a lot of collateral damage, but I just don't see how else we can get where we need to be.

  by MjrMjr on Tue Feb 08, 2005 at 06:24:49 PM PDT

•  this is kinda off-topic,

  but if you know anyone who doesn't have health insurance and can afford $100 a year, Ithacahealth.org is a collective insurance provider. To see what it covers, see here

  by ErinElizaH on Tue Feb 08, 2005 at 06:44:18 PM PDT

  •  What an awesome idea...

    I'd love to hear some people's experience with this.    
    I hope it catches on.

    by WorldTraveler on Tue Feb 08, 2005 at 08:42:57 PM PDT