Florida Company Discriminating Against Smokers
The headline reads…
...but companies aren’t really forbidding smoking. They’re just refusing to hire you if you choose to smoke. You can smoke if you want, it’s just that it’ll impact your career if you do. Which is something employers are perfectly free to do.
And, really, we’re going to be seeing more and more of this sort of thing as the push to shove the expenses of health care off onto businesses continue. If we, citizens, are going to expect businesses to pay for our health care those businesses are going to start to expect that they have a certain level of control over the parts of our lives that impact health care costs. Such as what we do with our leisure time. What we eat. Whether or not we smoke. How much we exercise.
Do you want your boss to have a say in your diet or exercise regimen? Most of us would probably say “no,” but that’s the problem with asking other people to pay for our health care. Whether it’s your employer or the government, if you invite them into your life to pay for your health care they’re going to feel like they can tell you how to live your life.
Which is why the real solution to the health care issue is to empower citizens so that they can pay for their own health care. Because when you’re paying for yourself, all the choices are yours to make. and being free to choose is a good thing.
