Employers should worry about what happens when their employees are on the clock, not off it.
Today it's smoking, next week it will be drinking and the week after it will be high fat, junk food diets employers will penalize in an effort to "control" exploding healthcare costs.
If non-smokers applaud these efforts, they can not complain when the spotlight is turned on their weight, blood pressure or cholestorol levels. As a recent USA Today article highlighted, once smokers are snuffed out, employers must find another group to blame for high healthcare costs. The company featured in the article went after smokers, the overweight and those who have high blood pressure and/ or high cholestorol.
http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/health/2007-07-10-insurance-healthy-workers_N.htm

The only reason smokers can be targeted is because
they are not organized.  Can you imagine the furor
that would occur if African Americans were targeted
about their personal habits? Smokers make up a bigger
minority than African Americans. I smoke, but don't
do it in restaurants or public places. Don't need
big brother company or government telling me what to do. The city where I reside even has hamburger cops
to make sure your hamburger patty is well done.

So who are they going to flog when everyone quits smoking and they do not have the fatted cow called "tobacco tax" to milk?  Like M J, I wonder what will be next?  How many freedoms are we, as a population, willing to have regulated by government &/or our employers?  Will we be penalized if we ride motorcycles or skydive?  When will the employers begin dressing the part, wearing gestapo uniforms, for instance? Maybe they can have annual parades where the employers march in unified goose-step!
I quit smoking 4 years ago but that was my choice, not my empoyers'.  If given an ultimatum to quit smoking, I would have quit the company.  Come on folks, quit being so damn much holier-than-thou and imposing your will on everyone whose habits you personally disagree with...if justice is served, your own personal habits, which someone in power disapproves of, will be the next to be banned...or taxed into oblivion...as long as the majority of voters do not share your habits.
J Y

There has been a heated debate in Congress and among non-smokers about banning nicotine and making it a dangerous substance.  However, the Food and Drug Administration declines to label nicotine as dangerous.  Why is this so?  Well, it's been kept under wraps for quite some time why nicotine and nicotinic acid can never be regulated or banned because nicotine and nicotinic acid must be part of our daily diet.  Nicotinic acid is acutally NIACIN, a necessary and essential vitamin.  Whithout nicotine or nicotinic acid, we would be be subject to pellagra and other disorders.

Yet, Congress wants smokers to become philanthropists, by forcing them to pay for someone else's health-care.  It's wrong to steal Mr. Congress person.  

I quit my last employer after 6 years because they put out the smoking lamp. I make 25% more money now and can smoke again.  It was his loss, not mine.
There will always be companies that don't choose to impose on their worker's lives.  And yes, some people are smart enough to realize that banning smokers is a dangerous precedent to start.  Next will be the overweight, the pregnant, etc.  It won't start at smokers and everyone knows it.  I will quit any employer who tries to tell me what to do on my own time. You should too.

Words from Journal of Rob Pollock, from an approximation of what Martin Niemoeller, the German pastor who outspokenly opposed the Nazis and suffered through concentrations camps, said to a seminary audience in Georgia in 1959:

“First they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.  Then they came for the Communists, and I did not speak out because I was not a Communist.  Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak out for me.”

If every smoker quit today, is there anyone out there who really beleives that insurance rates would magically decrease tomorrow? They will just find another way to keep rates high by blaming something else. By the way, the smoking employees at our company volunteered to not smoke in the office(without being asked). Our employer has provided us with a place to smoke in our shop.

I used to work for a company that banned smoking on the property and that included in your own vehicle with the windows rolled up.  To me that's just rediculous.  This company is located on a major highway.  So if I wanted to smoke I had to go stand in the street putting my life in danger.  I say this because I was almost hit by a truck that was riding on the shoulder.  After this happened I went to other employees who were smokers with a pettion for our employer to keep us safe and put a smokers area on the property. His response to our pettion was, "If you all want a smokers area so bad go work for someone else otherwise quit your Bit**ing."  And that exactly what most of us did.

I agree that employers shouldn't be allowed to dictate what employees do in their spare time... unless it affects the other employees. I have no problem with co-workers having a designated smoking area for their breaks, but if I'm working my behind off just to pay the bills, and I'm being penalized financially for someone else's poor health choices... that's not fair either! Businesses should set things up so that non-smokers pay a lower premium than smokers.

Nazi's: In German POW concentration camps, some smokers gave up their FOOD RATION of bread, trading for CIGARETTES.  Several of these smokers were known to die of STARVATION, much sooner than other POW's. Making the phrase "I'm DYING for a Cigarette!" a tragically ironic reality!

More American Troops, in fact, have died from SMOKING related causes, than died in ALL Wars combined, including VIETNAM, Afghanistan, & Bush's Mess, the IRAQ War.

Smoking cessation aids & programs, should be paid for by the TOBACCO COMPANIES, who were so good at hooking the WWII "Greatest  Generation" (they made a sweet deal with the American Red Cross, giving the Charity big $$$$, in exchange the Red Cross included CIGARETTES in every "CARE" Package for the Troops.

How thoughtful -- many Soldiers who had NEVER SMOKED before, started smoking when they went to War.

The Military doesn't allow Tobacco Companies to overtly send Cigarettes or Cigars to our Troops in Iraq, but under the BUSH admin., they put that BLOWHARD windbag, Rush Limbaugh, on Armed Forces Radio, & he used his Radio Show to "PIMP" for Cigar Pushers, urging listeners to send CIGARS to the Troops.  Gee, Rush really cares about our brave soldiers!  Why not send them some OXYCONTIN, Rush?

The only one forcing Smokers to do anything, is their own ADDICTION.  While they probably started smoking as a CHILD, 12, 13 or 14 yrs. old, if their care about their personal FREEDOM of Choice, then they'll WANT to kick the habit -- because they are "prisoners" of their addiction.

And, if you don't want to quit for yourself, do it for your wife, your kids, or your grandkids. They'll "breathe easier", believe me, & so will you!


Tobacco Companies call smokers "CASH COWS".

Many health plans are not 'no fault', smokers do pay more already for many plans, if you try to get a quote with & then without being a smoker, the rates are already different.   They raise questions when you apply for health insurance & are already starting to charge smokers more.   So smokers are paying - the question is your ailment or habit next on their list.

We are all being targeted by insurance companies (health, homeowners (look at Katrina victims) or auto).  I have a friend who works for a major health care provider, that they are constantly spending mega dollars are looking for the next largest group of insured to go after.   From what my friend has been working on, overweight people are the next up to bat in the blame game for the high insurance rates.    When they are done with them, it will be another group of people with a socially unacceptable health condition or situation.   They will many meetings/conferences/seminars & spend tons of our premiums to decide the next issue to use to up premiums.

Meanwhile, have you noticed how little they pay your doctor when you go for a visit or procedure, it is embarrassing to have a nationally recognized health insurance plan that you pay good money for & see that your doctor only gets $25 for a consultation or procedure when the service has been billed for $150 - no wonder they doctors don't take certain insurances, especially the best known plans --- they give our doctors & hospitals the least back on claims, so we lose the good doctors to those whose speciality is how to play the game with them & how to get patients in & out as quickly as possible. Hospitals are in the same boat, they only get a very small percentage of what the bill is, thus the neverending spiraling of costs on their end to keep these hospitals going.   So hospitals are closing, nurses losing their jobs, and patients have to go somewhere else.   Patients are forced to have day surgeries, tests at other facilities that that don't get their fees covered in full either, so they have to up their prices.   The only entity in this cycle that seems to make sure to get all the dollars they feel entitled to, have nothing to do with providing healthcare, the insurance companies --- they don't give breaks, reduce rates, compromise or re-evaluate their internal practices, they spend with abandon because they truly have an unending source of funds to do with what they please, why do you think they can pay for health clubs on your policy, but not your doctor's fees or that ultrascan he ordered.  They  are the next big corporate scandal waiting to happen, like the bad mortgages that our respected banks made.    This is going to happen, they are dictating health care when they are not in health care -- they make their own rules with no regs & we just sit by & watch them cry about their premiums while they are pulling in the cash, putting patients at risk & forcing the most qualified doctors & hospitals to opt out of accepting their plans.    This too will hit the corporate fan eventually & the fallout will come for us all to deal with.

Many of the comments I have read on this site today are on track  but I truly feel that the next group of blame is being searched for right as we post our comments here.    Smokers now, but your turn is coming, it could be a condition that you don't even know you have right now, that will be the brunt of their next premium escalating attack.

Smoking kills...at work, at food establishments and in life. Ohio passed the no smoking law...others are doing the same thing and I feel that is great. I can not stand it when I am working next to a smoker...they stink.

Get the message people...smoking is bad...in all ways!

note to nosmoker you don't smell good your self with body odors not showing before we do i have smoke 51 year my health is very good we so many people wants to gripe anything we are going to hell in a hand basket weight cause more 5 times health problems the over weight people the over weight in school the food we have there lunch there is much to say about this smoking no worst being next bad breath and green teeth and brush your the way you shoud and use mouth this this stink  get this your you nonsmoker I am one  vet that mad bad about it there are some people in the use don't believe anything we do this use we are home of the free and the brave this not be much with all the laws congressman the congress we will be voting for commumism next    MAY GOD BLESS USA    

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