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This is almost always because the company gets a break on health insurance premiums for enacting such a policy.

Ah that makes sense. Was something changed recently to enable this? I’ve certainly seen employer health insurance discounts for not smoking for years, but the complete ban, listed in a job application, and explicitly including cessation aids feels like something I’ve only seen in recent years.

The first time I heard about it was hospital groups and other healthcare employers around 2010. Like you said it was originally an optional bonus/discount but even then there were explicit plans to make it mandatory over some years.

The timing as I remember it matches up with ACA passing (optional) and going into effect (mandatory) so may have something to do with health insurer costs related to that. But I don't know enough about it to guess more, just a suspicion.

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