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Comment by magduf | Hacker News Reader

Maybe, but the problem is that smokers cost the company a lot more than non-smokers, due to this country's strange expectation that your employer should subsidize your health insurance.

If we didn't have this idea that your ability to afford health insurance should be tied to full-time employment, then this shouldn't be an issue. But I can see that companies have a very good argument for discriminating against people who willingly choose to harm their bodies and incur higher healthcare costs. If we as a society don't want companies forcing their will on employees for things they do off-hours, then maybe we as a society should change the way healthcare insurance is handled.

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>that smokers cost the company a lot more than non-smokers

Does it though? Smokers typically don't get ill affects until later in life / retirement, at which point companies don't pay insurance.

Sounds more like typical Puritanical BS. Maybe they're just trying to get some free brand promotion.

>Maybe, but the problem is that smokers cost the company a lot more than non-smokers, due to this country's strange expectation that your employer should subsidize your health insurance.

This gets dangerously close to validating discriminatory hiring against any negative health markers. Do they start tracking your BMI next?

And what's wrong with discriminatory hiring against negative health markers? It's perfectly legal to discriminate in other ways: employers are absolutely allowed to fire employees who are incompetent, for example. They're allowed to administer tests to job candidates to see if they're competent to do the job. There's all kinds of other things they're allowed to discriminate based on (like "cultural fit"), as long as it doesn't look like they're discriminating based on a "protected class" (race, sex, religion, etc.). "Negative health markers" are not a protected class. So why shouldn't an employer be allowed to discriminate based on BMI?

I agree with healthcare insurance being changed.

I will say, just because it costs them more money doesn't mean they should legally be able to act on that.

Many times someone from a certain religion might cost an employer more than someone who doesn't need religious prayer breaks. But legally employers can't act on that.

I'm not saying smoking = religion, but I am saying information available to make logical decisions != the ability to act on that information. Just saying we've already made the decision that we will legally restrict companies from acting on certain pieces of information and therefore we can expand this existing framework to protect other life choices (eating fatty foods, skiing hobby, driving a sports car, having kids, etc)

>Many times someone from a certain religion might cost an employer more than someone who doesn't need religious prayer breaks. But legally employers can't act on that.

They can't act on that, specifically because we have a law that prevents them from doing so. Religion is a "protected class" in employment, along with a few other things (race, gender, etc.).

Smoking is not a protected class, so employers are free to discriminate all they want. Do you really want to spend your time writing to Congress to have them pass a law making smoking a protected class?

>having kids, etc)

I'm not sure, but I think having kids is already a protected class. If it isn't, it probably wouldn't be that hard to get that law passed. Getting it passed for smokers would not be so easy. Personally, if Democrats took this up as a major campaign issue, instead of focusing on more important things, I probably wouldn't vote for them any more.

So neoliberal causes like LGBT issues and immigration really are a bigger issue to you than worker’s rights?

Democrats are, in my view, the worst party in terms of focus and connection with the average voter right now. Wages have been stagnant for 3 decades for everyone, and somehow this is completely lost on the party. Instead they are trying to get Trump re-elected by focusing on gun control as a wedge issue. Focusing on worker’s rights or really any liberal cause besides protecting classes would make me much more likely to vote democrat. Not that I don’t think that everything is fine on those fronts, only that I think women’s/LGBT/immigrant rights should take a back seat to things like wealth inequality, worker’s rights, and global environmental health.

Focusing on workers rights would endanger their corporate campaign donations, and they can't have that.

> Do you really want to spend your time writing to Congress to have them pass a law making smoking a protected class?

No, but I do like writing about restricting employers ability to discriminate employees based on their off-the clock personal hobbies and preferences.

Basically using your language, I hope that 'everyone is a protected class' when it comes to legal forms of entertainment and hobby.

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