Comments:


I cannot tell the difference between someone who is overwieght because
they eat Krispy Kreme donuts for breakfast and someone who is overweight
because gaining weight might be a side effect of medications they are
taking for an inherited illness. How am I, as an employer, supposed to
know or find out

You can't know, with the HIPAA guidelines, inless you have corporate spies
tracking the eating habaits of your employees...

And does this attitude towards the overwieght then open the door for an
employee to sue the employer over the fact that he is now 20 lbs
overweight because donuts were served at sales meetings every morning?

I believe it will...they have now re-opened the McDonald's obesity case. It
seems that none of us can make decisions on our own anymore...corporate
America ahs taken over our minds and tells us how we are to live...


Who's fault is
it, then, that he is no longer desirable as an employee?

The court's will say it's the employers if the above scenario pans out. I
reality,m though, we know that people ahve to learn again to be responsible
for themselves.


BTW, I used to own a successful construction company, was even involved in
developing some islands in the Caribbean (my sister still is helping to
develop in Honduras, El Salvadore, and Granada), and the one and only cost
I could not control was health care. We experienced 20% annual increases
no matter what we did to try to control it. Well, you don't have to be a
business genius to realize that I could not sustain those kinds of
increases and remain profitable.

Our employees have a choice of 3different health plans. The cheapest, an
HMO with emphasis on wellness care, is the most affordable and is offered at
50/50. The POS plan and the traditional 80/20 health plans are offered at
65/35, the employee paying the heftier percentage. Four years ago, we were
pating 50% across the board. This years plan is that we will only pay the
percentage on the employee and they will have to pay the full extra amount
for the family plan. That is the only way we can afford to offer heealth
care in the rpivate sector. Michigan is researching ideas to make health
care plans available that are cheaper through coalitions of businesses with
like profiles. That will be a little help.

We fired all the employees, and hired some back as
sub contractors, paying them more money for the work they did, but without
health benefits.

That's ok in some industries but in others, you lose control of your
employees.

At least this way I knew what the cost of doing business
was going to be from year to year.

Lonny Bruce

BTW, you wouldn't be related to some Boettcher's in Nebraska, would you?
--
Enjoy my new sailing web site
http://sail247.com


"Frank Boettcher" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 26 Jan 2005 17:45:00 GMT, "Lonny Bruce"
wrote:

Neal was wrong, once again, when he brought attention to the wacky way
smokers are being treated in Michigan in the Thread "Getting Tough on
Cigeratte Smokers". This is directly due to the fact that Michigan has a
liberal democrat woman governer, who was not even born in the USA. Here
is
another result of the liberal attitudes here in Michigan:

http://www.mlive.com/news/kzgazette/...7362399290.xml

Just to be clear, I am not a smoker, and I don't condone smoking in any
way,
however we seem to be going down this slippery slope when it comes to
smokers. I see them as simply a convenient target as a group of peeps
not
fit for hiring.

Absolutely! I'm in the process of closing a factory and sending the
jobs to the far east. You want to know the only cost I couldn't
control? Health care costs. Up double digits every year. And I know
that a helluva a lot of the cost is related to smoking and other
"lifestyle" issues. However, now that the HIPPA privacy laws have
passed, I don't even have the right to know what I'm paying for. I
applaud the company that is breaking ground and doing something about
this. I wanted to for a while but was advised against it for "legal"
reasons.


Who is next, people that are 20 pounds overweight?

Certainly the unhealthy obese, if they are not willing to do
something about it.
Why
not? The same arguements can be made that peeps that are overweight take
too much time off, and add to the overall cost of health care, therefore
no
one should hire them. Then who will be next, peeps who are genetically
disposed to certain diseases? Yes, it would take genetic profiling, but
why
not? I mean the same arguements could be made that no one should hire
women
who's mother has contracted breast cancer, for instance, as there is a
risk
that they may contract it too, causing an employers health insurance
claims
to go up.

There is a big difference between behavior and status. very easy to
define.



It is a dangerous, slippery slope. And brought to you by the liberal
political party who claims to be for the little guy, the most vulnerable
in
society. And apparently improperly supported by Captain Neal.

And well advised support ( boy it hurt to say that)

As far as I'm concerned people can do whatever in hell they want that
is not against the law. However they should not expect their behavior
to be subsidized by their fellow workers group insurance ( which means
the company they work for because most are self insured with a third
party administrator) or my tax dollar transfers in the form of
government aid. Expecting that subsidy is the liberal position, not
dropping the hammer on those who expect it.

Lonny Bruce

On Wed, 26 Jan 2005 17:45:00 GMT, "Lonny Bruce"
wrote:

Neal was wrong, once again, when he brought attention to the wacky way
smokers are being treated in Michigan in the Thread "Getting Tough on
Cigeratte Smokers". This is directly due to the fact that Michigan has a
liberal democrat woman governer, who was not even born in the USA. Here is
another result of the liberal attitudes here in Michigan:

http://www.mlive.com/news/kzgazette/...7362399290.xml

Just to be clear, I am not a smoker, and I don't condone smoking in any way,
however we seem to be going down this slippery slope when it comes to
smokers. I see them as simply a convenient target as a group of peeps not
fit for hiring.

Absolutely! I'm in the process of closing a factory and sending the
jobs to the far east. You want to know the only cost I couldn't
control? Health care costs. Up double digits every year. And I know
that a helluva a lot of the cost is related to smoking and other
"lifestyle" issues. However, now that the HIPPA privacy laws have
passed, I don't even have the right to know what I'm paying for. I
applaud the company that is breaking ground and doing something about
this. I wanted to for a while but was advised against it for "legal"
reasons.


Who is next, people that are 20 pounds overweight?

Certainly the unhealthy obese, if they are not willing to do
something about it.
Why
not? The same arguements can be made that peeps that are overweight take
too much time off, and add to the overall cost of health care, therefore no
one should hire them. Then who will be next, peeps who are genetically
disposed to certain diseases? Yes, it would take genetic profiling, but why
not? I mean the same arguements could be made that no one should hire women
who's mother has contracted breast cancer, for instance, as there is a risk
that they may contract it too, causing an employers health insurance claims
to go up.

There is a big difference between behavior and status. very easy to
define.



It is a dangerous, slippery slope. And brought to you by the liberal
political party who claims to be for the little guy, the most vulnerable in
society. And apparently improperly supported by Captain Neal.

And well advised support ( boy it hurt to say that)

As far as I'm concerned people can do whatever in hell they want that
is not against the law. However they should not expect their behavior
to be subsidized by their fellow workers group insurance ( which means
the company they work for because most are self insured with a third
party administrator) or my tax dollar transfers in the form of
government aid. Expecting that subsidy is the liberal position, not
dropping the hammer on those who expect it.

Lonny Bruce

On Fri, 28 Jan 2005 19:24:29 -0500, Capt. Neal®
wrote this crap:


"Horvath" wrote in message ...
I've always thought that if we refused food stamps to people over 200
lbs., we would save hundreds of millions on welfare.



But, Bobsprit would go hungry . . .


That's the point.






Pathetic Earthlings! No one can save you now!

katysails wrote:
Comments:

We fired all the employees, and hired some back as
sub contractors, paying them more money for the work they did, but
without
health benefits.

That's ok in some industries but in others, you lose control of your
employees.

Damn right you do. And if they are good they can put the screws to you,
or some smart recruiter will find him and place him where he will make
a pile of money for your competitors.

Joe

On Sat, 29 Jan 2005 00:22:13 GMT, "Lonny Bruce"
wrote:

Frank wrote:

There is a big difference between behavior and status. very easy to
define.


That is an interesting comment. It made me think.

So, are you saying, in principle, that you could agree with discrimination
based on a persons choice of smoking, or discrimination based on a persons
choice of being 20 lbs overweight, but not agree, in principle, with
discriminating against those who are in bad health situations (or even
potential bad health situations) due to genetics or environment?

Discrimination? I guess you could call it that and yes I think that as
an advanced society we have an obligation to continue to make progress
but to bring along those who for no reason that they can control would
be left behind. But those that make choices to cause scarce resources
to be used to offset the results of those choice should not be
accommodated.

I am not trying to put words in your mouth, I am trying to understand what
you mean by that statement.

I cannot tell the difference between someone who is overwieght because they
eat Krispy Kreme donuts for breakfast and someone who is overweight because
gaining weight might be a side effect of medications they are taking for an
inherited illness. How am I, as an employer, supposed to know or find out
the difference? And what is the difference to me, in the end, if my
business goals are to control costs? There is no difference. Cause doesn't
matter. The cost is what I am trying to control, and an overweight person
is going to cost me more, no matter the cause.

Third party health plan administrators design plans and make those
distinctions all the time. If my business goal is to make sure that
my employee turnover is low and that my employees are invested in the
benefits provided for them, I would expect some responsibility for
those benefits.

And does this attitude towards the overwieght then open the door for an
employee to sue the employer over the fact that he is now 20 lbs overweight
because donuts were served at sales meetings every morning? Who's fault is
it, then, that he is no longer desirable as an employee?

My post talked about the "unhealthy obese" . Twenty pounds does not
necessarily qualify. And by the way, I subsidize 60% of the cost of a
local wellness center health facility that is less than a half mile
from the facility. About 10% take advantage of it. I also provide a
confidential Employee Assistance Program for those with any type of
problem that requires a program or counseling (drug and alcohol,
eating disorders, marriage and family issues, etc.). I believe that
if an employee refuses any type of help and just wants the outcome to
be paid for, I should be able to terminate them. May be radical, but
once all value added jobs are gone and we are trying to maintain an
economy based on selling each other food, suing each other and paying
government workers from tax dollars we'll be sorry we didn't consider
the radical.

BTW, I used to own a successful construction company, was even involved in
developing some islands in the Caribbean (my sister still is helping to
develop in Honduras, El Salvadore, and Granada), and the one and only cost I
could not control was health care. We experienced 20% annual increases no
matter what we did to try to control it. Well, you don't have to be a
business genius to realize that I could not sustain those kinds of increases
and remain profitable. We fired all the employees, and hired some back as
sub contractors, paying them more money for the work they did, but without
health benefits. At least this way I knew what the cost of doing business
was going to be from year to year.

Lonny Bruce

BTW, you wouldn't be related to some Boettcher's in Nebraska, would you?

Not to my knowledge. My family (post Germany) originated in the East
Port/Annopolis area. Most of my branch are now on the Gulf Coast in
Mississippi and Texas. I'm in Mississippi and (in the spirt of on
topic content) that is where most of my sailing is done.