Employer charging smokers.. Thoughts?
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My company has this policy, and about half the smokers quit due to it. I don't see it is a bad thing.
How can they determine that you smoke anyway? - There is a rumor floating around that (next year) they will enforce a testing system with a doctors checkup to determine your lung health, etc. I don't know if they will or not but obviously a lot of people smoke on company property out in the open anyway...0 -
Basically insurance companies are under attack for charging more for preexisting conditions...so if you can't charge the person who is really using the most medical... find a large group of people doing something considered a "sin" and charge them. smoking can cause long term health problems but they are charging for current coverage. So why should a non-ill smoker be charged for more current coverage than any other non-ill co-worker??
Example... if OP smokes this year and only goes in for her yearly check up (free for many companies). How is she costing the group more for the year?? You pay insurance on a year to year basis. Now in socialized medicine... long run she very well could cost the system more money by choosing to smoke. But this is a group plan and she may not be in the same group next year. It's cost covering for things they can't out right cost cover do to discrimination.0 -
Some insurance companies do charge for things other than smoking, i.e. BMI is too high, high BP, etc. My company for 2013 is having everyone do a Biometric test, which means they find out what you BP, blood glucose, cholesterol are as well as my height/weight and waist measurement... for this yr, just taking the tests gives us a $25/month discount... I suspect in the future if there are negative changes in those initial #s, my premiums will go up.
I doubt it. My company has been doing a similar program (called "Healthy Lifestyles") for quite a few years now, and there's absolutely no indication that they will start adjusting premiums based on health results. The company is self-insured, so I believe they COULD do such a thing, but I sincerely doubt they ever will.
My company does the blood work/BP/etc every other year, plus we have to review the results with an over-the-phone "health coach" at least once a year, with unlimited access to continue with those coaches if they want to make improvements (and personal trainers on staff to help in the company gyms, all free of charge, by appointment).
The key is to make people aware of their risks and offer them the tools to mitigate the risks themselves.
One interesting result is that we had a HUGE push toward diabetes awareness the first year as people did their first blood test (in some cases in decades, in some cases EVER) and discovered that 5% of the employee base were undiagnosed diabetics and 10% had blood sugar control issues. Most folks took steps to get it under control through diet before things got bad, and the net result is a significant projected savings in health care costs over the next few years.
We have the same "healthy lifestyle" program, but my insurance through my employer DOES charge extra if you do not fall within healthy ranges~~to the tune of $120 additional in premiums. For each range you are out, you basically are basically charged a penalty.0 -
so, starting in 2013 my employer will charge employees that smoke. i smoke on occassion. i don't know all the details as of yet but what I do know is that all employees will have to sign a waiver upon enrollment for insurance. basically i must certify that I had been a non-tobacco user for the 12 months immediately prior to completing my enrollment. since i can't certify this, i am subject to a $40 monthly premium deducted from my pay. i understand that smoking can lead to lifelong medical expenses. in my city, the largest medical claims are high blood pressure/ hypertension back & join pain. every year i get a medical exam & i get consistently get a clean bill of health. i excercise and watch what i eat. as i understand, one cause of high blood pressure is smoking, but it's also caused by being overweight or obese, lack of physical activity, poor diet etc. so, why target smokers only??
just wondering thoughts on this? and, yes, i know smoking is bad for me. wah wah.
ok,sucks to be a smoker etc, but I'd be curious what your employer thinks of those that are drug users, alcohol drinkers, poor drivers and those who play dangerous sports.0 -
That's not relevant. We're talking about actuary tables, not individual procedures.Just a note about enforcement. They can test your hair, and assuming you have a decent length, it contains a record of the substances you've consumed as its grown. If you want to cheat the system, shave your head.
By the way, as a 41-year old woman you have been benefiting from lower car insurance rates for years. Meanwhile, males like myself get charged higher, whether we are reckless or not, simply due to probability theory predicting higher risk. This is how insurance works. If you don't like it, maybe you should pay the males of America back for all the cheaper insurance you've received due your predicted lower risk.
You can pay all the women in American who paid premiums for health insurance that covered Viagra but not birth control pills.
Cuts both ways, laddie.0 -
They can sample your hair. Your hair contains a record of what you consume.How can they determine that you smoke anyway? I know my BIL smokes but he abstained for 3 days before whatever blood tests they give for his life insurance and it was enough time to not be detected and therefore he was considered a non-smoker.0 -
You obviously don't understand how insurance works. It's based on probability. A 17-year old could be the best driver in the world but he/she is going to be charged a higher rate due to higher risk in their age group.Basically insurance companies are under attack for charging more for preexisting conditions...so if you can't charge the person who is really using the most medical... find a large group of people doing something considered a "sin" and charge them. smoking can cause long term health problems but they are charging for current coverage. So why should a non-ill smoker be charged for more current coverage than any other non-ill co-worker??
Example... if OP smokes this year and only goes in for her yearly check up (free for many companies). How is she costing the group more for the year?? You pay insurance on a year to year basis. Now in socialized medicine... long run she very well could cost the system more money by choosing to smoke. But this is a group plan and she may not be in the same group next year. It's cost covering for things they can't out right cost cover do to discrimination.0 -
Good for them.
Exactly.
Mine does this as well. Thankfully I haven't smoked in almost 4 years so it's not an issue for me. It would definitely get me to quit if I still smoked though.0 -
You obviously don't understand how insurance works. It's based on probability. A 17-year old could be the best driver in the world but he/she is going to be charged a higher rate due to higher risk in their age group.Basically insurance companies are under attack for charging more for preexisting conditions...so if you can't charge the person who is really using the most medical... find a large group of people doing something considered a "sin" and charge them. smoking can cause long term health problems but they are charging for current coverage. So why should a non-ill smoker be charged for more current coverage than any other non-ill co-worker??
Example... if OP smokes this year and only goes in for her yearly check up (free for many companies). How is she costing the group more for the year?? You pay insurance on a year to year basis. Now in socialized medicine... long run she very well could cost the system more money by choosing to smoke. But this is a group plan and she may not be in the same group next year. It's cost covering for things they can't out right cost cover do to discrimination.
Exactly. A smoker is more likely to have health problems in the future and therefore more likely to use the insurance they are paying for.
Here's how insurance works. Let's say 50,000 people are paying $100 per month. That's $5,000,000 per month. Let's say that out of those 50,000 people 1,000 of them need $2,000 worth of health coverage. The insurance company has then paid out $2,000,000 for health care coverage and has netted a profit of $3,000,000.
Obviously insurance rates continue to rise because the medical care rates are rising. Costs and frequency are higher due to problems like smoking and obesity.
So charging someone more because they smoked does in fact make sense. In fact it would also make sense to charge someone more who's obese. My employer doesn't but we do get some free money in our MRA if we register a BMI of under 25 I believe.0 -
Wow. This is all completely insane. I see a black market forming for health screenings. I also see insurance meddling too much. Soon, it will be about your family history. Oh, your family shows a history of heart disease. Regardless of YOUR health currently, we are going to charge you extra for that. Insane. All of it is completely off the charts insane. All that buy into this crap have had too much ofthe kool aid.
What bothers me is most of you may not understand statistics. So, these little risks you are talking about are already factored into your premiums. It's just a way for the companies to eek out more profit for the shareholders. It has nothing to do with them suffering. Lol. Geez. Wake up.0 -
I guess each party has the freedom of contract. From a business perspective, focusing on policing the health of your human resources may distract you from your mission. Is loosing a significant percentage of your workforce worth it? Probably not.0
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Something else to consider:
You are not "required" to participate in your company's insurance program. If a smoker feels they are truly the peak of health, then leverage a health spending account and place your own money into that account for future health costs. Take the gamble yourself and self-insure.
As as aside, have you ever looked around the "smoker's circle" at your place of business? As a generality, most of those folks are not the picture of health. You don't need to be obese to have a heart attack or get cancer. You just need to make poor health choices, like smoking, not exercising, eating the wrong foods, eating too much sugar, etc. It's the MINORITY of people who are regular daily smokers who are runners or consistent athletes.0 -
You obviously don't understand how insurance works. It's based on probability. A 17-year old could be the best driver in the world but he/she is going to be charged a higher rate due to higher risk in their age group.Basically insurance companies are under attack for charging more for preexisting conditions...so if you can't charge the person who is really using the most medical... find a large group of people doing something considered a "sin" and charge them. smoking can cause long term health problems but they are charging for current coverage. So why should a non-ill smoker be charged for more current coverage than any other non-ill co-worker??
Example... if OP smokes this year and only goes in for her yearly check up (free for many companies). How is she costing the group more for the year?? You pay insurance on a year to year basis. Now in socialized medicine... long run she very well could cost the system more money by choosing to smoke. But this is a group plan and she may not be in the same group next year. It's cost covering for things they can't out right cost cover do to discrimination.
I do understand that the system is based on probability... my point however is that it isn't right to pair a 20 year old smoker in with a 50 year old smoker... and say they have the same probability of using more health insurance "this year." Or why should a 20 year old smoker that just started smoking pay the extra and a 60 year old ex smoker that smoked for 30 years get a discount cause he quit?0 -
You obviously don't understand how insurance works. It's based on probability. A 17-year old could be the best driver in the world but he/she is going to be charged a higher rate due to higher risk in their age group.Basically insurance companies are under attack for charging more for preexisting conditions...so if you can't charge the person who is really using the most medical... find a large group of people doing something considered a "sin" and charge them. smoking can cause long term health problems but they are charging for current coverage. So why should a non-ill smoker be charged for more current coverage than any other non-ill co-worker??
Example... if OP smokes this year and only goes in for her yearly check up (free for many companies). How is she costing the group more for the year?? You pay insurance on a year to year basis. Now in socialized medicine... long run she very well could cost the system more money by choosing to smoke. But this is a group plan and she may not be in the same group next year. It's cost covering for things they can't out right cost cover do to discrimination.
I do understand that the system is based on probability... my point however is that it isn't right to pair a 20 year old smoker in with a 50 year old smoker... and say they have the same probability of using more health insurance "this year." Or why should a 20 year old smoker that just started smoking pay the extra and a 60 year old ex smoker that smoked for 30 years get a discount cause he quit?
You are correct: in group benefits through an employer there is less differentiation based on risk characteristics (e.g., age, gender, preexisting conditions, weight, etc.) than individual health plans. This, however, is changing with the inclusion of "credits" or rate adjustments for smoking and weight-based issues. You will continue to see this evolve more and more.
The reason you do not see this at the employer-offered health plan level is due to the administrative aspect of negotiating a rate for an employer and due to the administrative costs related to differentiating cost and communicating such costs at the employee level.0 -
You mean your employer helps out with health insurance plan?
Guess I would think about this more, if my employer was this gracious..
Mine is $460 per month and husbands is $430 per month. For both of us $890 per month. I was rejected by Kaiser when I applied for individual policy. So I joined the california cosmetologist association, and they had to accept me being a member of their group. So its not thru my employer that I get healthcare... I've been here 8 years, and at the initial interview he said he was "Looking into it" Yep right. : ( Everytime I have asked I get the answer that "Times Are Tough"
(We work for the same company, whos first priority is purchasing classic cars & vehicles, instead of helping his employees)
But if he ever does, and I am smoking, then I would gladly pay the $40 to the insurance company.
Rant over0 -
You obviously don't understand how insurance works. It's based on probability. A 17-year old could be the best driver in the world but he/she is going to be charged a higher rate due to higher risk in their age group.Basically insurance companies are under attack for charging more for preexisting conditions...so if you can't charge the person who is really using the most medical... find a large group of people doing something considered a "sin" and charge them. smoking can cause long term health problems but they are charging for current coverage. So why should a non-ill smoker be charged for more current coverage than any other non-ill co-worker??
Example... if OP smokes this year and only goes in for her yearly check up (free for many companies). How is she costing the group more for the year?? You pay insurance on a year to year basis. Now in socialized medicine... long run she very well could cost the system more money by choosing to smoke. But this is a group plan and she may not be in the same group next year. It's cost covering for things they can't out right cost cover do to discrimination.
I do understand that the system is based on probability... my point however is that it isn't right to pair a 20 year old smoker in with a 50 year old smoker... and say they have the same probability of using more health insurance "this year." Or why should a 20 year old smoker that just started smoking pay the extra and a 60 year old ex smoker that smoked for 30 years get a discount cause he quit?
You are correct: in group benefits through an employer there is less differentiation based on risk characteristics (e.g., age, gender, preexisting conditions, weight, etc.) than individual health plans. This, however, is changing with the inclusion of "credits" or rate adjustments for smoking and weight-based issues. You will continue to see this evolve more and more.
The reason you do not see this at the employer-offered health plan level is due to the administrative aspect of negotiating a rate for an employer and due to the administrative costs related to differentiating cost and communicating such costs at the employee level.
Excellent explanation. Thanks.0 -
As long as it'll apply to "someone else"......it'll always be ok by the few. When and If it starts to target something one of "the few" does or likes or is.......they'll be screaming how unfair it is from the roof tops like a playground full of sissies gettin beat down0
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so, why target smokers only??
Probably because smoking is an entirely voluntary act, until you become addicted. If you choose to become addicted to cigarettes, then you choose to pay a higher premium. Sucks, but in terms of dollars-and-cents and insurance language, it makes pretty good sense.0 -
so, why target smokers only??
Because it is easy. That is the simple answer.
It is not as simple to boil it down to hypertension. Hypertension is NOT a good indicator of health. At least not just one BP. Just one BP is simply a representation of the hemodynamic cardiac conditions at that exact moment in time. It can change within an instant.
Another reason they pick on smokers is because smoking is known to have a direct effect on so many health aspects it is scary. Worse part is that it is a delayed effect that shows up years after the smoking offense has occurred. So to smoke today and say you feel great and exercise just doesn't cut it.0 -
Because by and large smokers are looked down upon so it is easier for insurance to target those risks than it is other risks.0
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