Smoking Can Be Hazardous To Your Career
Whirlpool has suspended 39 employees for lying about tobacco use, and the employees could face termination once their cases are investigated by the company. At the Colorado Health Insurance Insider, we’ve written about wellness programs that are becoming more common among large employers, and about our disappointment that the DOL is starting to consider wellness incentive programs to be discriminatory. Whirlpool has been charging employees who use tobacco an extra $500/year for their health insurance since the mid 90s - a move that I applaud, as it helps to reduce premium increases among workers who choose not to use tobacco, and it also provides an incentive to the tobacco users to kick the habit.
Now the company has spotted these 39 employees using tobacco products on company property, and they’ve been suspended without pay. The company relies on statements from employees regarding tobacco use, so no blood tests are done in order to determine who pays what when it comes to the employer-provided health insurance. Now these employees will go through a fact-finding and appeals process, and could be fired for lying.
I’m curious to see how this plays out. I wonder if there will be complaints about invasion of privacy, or fairness of a system that relies on catching workers in the act rather than routinely testing everyone. I’m very much in favor of retaining an employer’s right to charge additional premiums to employees who use tobacco, and to take disciplinary action against those who falsify their tobacco usage in order to pay lower premiums. If we’re expecting our employers to pay for our health care - as the majority of Americans are - we can’t expect them to turn a blind eye to the choices we make that increase our health care expenses. As a group, we Americans like to be able to make our own decisions and retain as much privacy and autonomy as possible. But we also like to have someone else pay for our health care (employers paying premiums and health insurance companies paying claims is the current ideal for most people). In order to get the latter, we have to give up a little of the former.
While I fully support Whirlpool’s decision to suspend the workers in question, I think that the overall setup would be more fair if each employee had a blood test for nicotine taken at the time of hire, in addition to the forms that are completed regarding tobacco usage. It seems like a simple step that would take a lot of the guesswork out of the equation. And they wouldn’t have to have people patrolling the grounds during lunch to see who’s smoking and who’s not.
So you would rather have an employee give blood than a camera watching their every move. That is a dangerous step. Blood contains a lot of information that could be used to cherry pick even further. The movie Gattica comes to mind…
I don’t like having to do pee tests, hair follicle tests, blood tests, or whatever when I am getting a new job. But I understand that they employers may have a lot of liability and see the reasoning in that. I would say the company should put it to a vote of all the employees in the company, or a union. There the ones that would be paying extra for there health insurance if some peopel are lying. And I would assume they would have a firm that is specialized in analyzing the blood tests that would only look at the nicotine (not the inferiority of DNA). Gattaca wasn’t the best movie but it made some good points. However, I think it is making a big leap to bring it up here.
I agree with ForHealth that a blood test may be a bit much for nicotine. I wouldn’t be concerned that it would be used for DNA or anything like that if the company used a professional testing vendor. I think the blood tests (or urine) would be for more serious drug or alcohol testing where the employees handle heavy machinery and there would be a safety issue. If it is just about the cost of health insurance, the current honor system they use is probably adequate.
Since apparently they were caught smoking on company property, they should have no expectation of privacy.
“I’m very much in favor of retaining an employer’s right to charge additional premiums to employees who use tobacco”
Would you also be in favor of charging additional premiums to overweight/obese employees? These people tend to have more health problems (diabetes, hypertension, etc.) resulting in higher premiums as well. Also it would be an incentive for them to lose weight.
So, where do you draw the line?
Susana,
Thanks for your comment. Yes - I’ve written several times about my support for health insurance proposals that call for charging higher premiums to overweight and obese employees. This is already how individual health insurance works, but employer group plans do not currently differentiate premiums based on weight.
If you aren’t going to charge more for smoking and obesity, then where do you draw the line going the other way and start charging more? Alcohol abuse? Meth? Professional hot dog eating on the weekends?
Interesting post - I’m curious to see how it plays out also. I think the next step will be for the smokers to play up the disease angle of “nicotine addiction,” the way we’ve done with alcoholism.
Louise and I watched Gattica last night and I can see why forHealth was reminded of that movie by this discussion.