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Dr. Mercola
November 03 2007

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You Might Lose Your Job If You Smoke or Eat Junk Food

In an effort to reduce health care costs, employers are beginning to scrutinize the lifestyle habits of their employees -- even those that happen outside of business hours.

It’s commonplace for insurance companies to question clients about their smoking habits, weight, or other health issues. However, a new trend has employers screening employees and new job applicants for these same factors. The following factors could now put your job on the line:

1. Smoking
2. Blood pressure
3. Blood glucose levels
4. Body mass
5. Bad cholesterol levels

Currently only a small portion of U.S. employers have taken action against what they deem unhealthy behaviors, but the list is growing. For instance, in September 2007 The Cleveland Clinic began screening potential employees for nicotine. If any is found in their systems, they’re denied employment.

In 2009, another company, Clarian Health, plans to start charging employees $5 per paycheck if they are found using tobacco or to have abnormal levels of cholesterol or high blood pressure.

Meanwhile, employees at Weyco Incorporated can be charged $50 fees per paycheck not only if they smoke, but if their spouse smokes as well.

Privacy advocates are concerned that these monitoring trends will get out of hand, with employers charging fines for eating fast food or visiting a tavern. Most experts believe, however, that as health care costs continue to rise, employers will continue to enact penalties for unhealthy behaviors.

Sources:



Dr. Mercola''s Comments Dr. Mercola's Comments:

It is about time that people start having some economic incentives to stay healthy. The trend has been to provide good-tasting convenience foods that are relatively inexpensive but dramatically contribute to disease.

I firmly believe that people should have freedom of choice for their lifestyle behaviors, but it sure makes a lot of sense to provide economic incentives at work for healthy choices. The current system simply passes on the costs for these unhealthy choices to the entire culture. Everyone has to pick up the bill for these choices, and has been typically penalized by higher insurance premiums (and for those without insurance, far higher costs if they ever have to go to a hospital).

The article mentions that some workplaces start out encouraging their employees to be healthier by offering incentives to do so, then later switched to charging fines.

Fortunately, there are new health care models that provide amazingly effective alternatives to traditional group insurance. I recently switched my entire organization over to a Health Reimbursement Account (HRA) with individual -- not group -- plans and we were able to radically improve the number of people covered, and lower the costs dramatically.

Paul Pilzer, a renowned economist, helped to spearhead this change and make it a legal option for employers. I interviewed him recently and hope to make that available in the near future.

Of course, it would be helpful to provide employees with the tools they need to make healthier choices. Providing healthy food in workplace cafeterias would be a start, along with offering before- or after-work exercise programs, or paying for an employee’s gym membership. But unless people have an incentive, they tend to resort to their manipulated brainwashing media messages and make consistently unhealthy choices.

How to Improve Your Health and Keep Your Job

What should you do if your employer has not yet opened its eyes to the benefits of providing healthy options? You should take matters into your own hands, and create the happy, healthy life you desire. This way, you can make the most of your time on the job, and your time at home with your loved ones. 

Start to use the over 100,000 pages of free information on this site so you can learn simple, practical and inexpensive tools and start taking control of your health. Some of the major points are:
  • Relieve your stress. In order to do this, I suggest using the energy psychology tool the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT). It is a psychological acupressure technique that can help you to channel your stress-related thoughts and leave you feeling calmer and more able to face your challenges, INCLUDING balancing your family and work time pressures.
  • Incorporate a routine exercise program into your life. You’ll feel more energized and happier. When you feel strong physically, it’s much easier to feel strong mentally and emotionally, as well.
  • Form good eating habits. You can do this by first determining your personal nutritional type and understanding the right kind of foods you should eat.
  • Take time out to sleep. I can't stress enough the importance of getting a good night's sleep. If you are constantly moving 24-7, are having problems sleeping, or simply feel there is too much to do to waste it on sleep, I would encourage you to read my 33 Secrets to a Good Night's Sleep. The techniques in this guide will help you get the needed sleep you're lacking, and improve both the quality and quantity of your sleep.


Related Links:

  Are You Living the Fast Life, Rather Than the Good Life?

  Prostate Cancer Risks Rise With Shift Work

  Stressed About Office Work? Here’s How to Relax




Comment on This Article
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Posted On Oct 11, 2007
Well, I can say one nice thing about Pepsi.  After getting you addicted to their products, the healthcare they provide for employees is exceptional.  I had all the bells and whistles on the healthcare for myself and my daughter for $40.00 a month. 
Firing employees for lack of health is socially irresponsible on the part of the company. 

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samurai
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Russ Bianchi
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Posted On Oct 11, 2007
That great health care plan at PEPSICO was subsidized, heavily, by massive profits destroying the health of those consuming PEPSICO sodas and junk food.

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KathieJamisonCote
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Posted On Oct 12, 2007
Government should not be subsidizing any private buisinesses.
but then they wouldn't get their perks, their $$$ for deep pockets,
and we wouldnt get their chem trails, their pesticided foods and their sick and dying animals from factory farms..........MAD COW DISEASE IS HERE........they just haven't come out and said it yet!

RON PAUL FOR PRESIDENT - LESS GOVERNMENT!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FG2PUZoukfA
a feel-good video.............

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Posted On Oct 14, 2007
Hi Kathie, yes mad cow disease is here, there, and everywhere.  The original one that was caught in Alberta was due to the farmer wanting to get insurance money.  As soon as it was loaded, then it was covered under the livestock insurance.  Most farmers are not like that, they practise the three S's.  Shoot, shovel and shut up.  And take the loss.

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Posted On Nov 03, 2007

Kathie. You say you want Ron Paul for president. Libertarian views sound good until one considers the type of consumer protections that the government has traditionally provided. Read...not firing people because the firm does not like their lifestyle, or they happen to be unlucky enough to have a preexisting medical condition. Certainly, the employer wants to build incentives for healthy employees, but the potential for abuse is tremendous.

I plan to vote for a Democrat for president, someone who, unlike George Bush, will enforece health, safety, and workers rights. I think that people are deluding themselves to believe that Ron Paul would protect the rights of the average citizen, when to do so necessarily involves more government oversight.

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Posted On Nov 05, 2007

Hear, hear Russ! A successful society is NOT based on having a good unemployment  rate (low %) as the useless governments of the world would like you to believe. If any given position is with a corporation or even general vocation of detrimental effect to Mother Earth or any of her inhabitants, then this is not good! People have jobs...SO WHAT! If the jobs they have contribute to decimating the planet. People must wake up and stop compromising their morals and beliefs just to earn a buck.

To xyzsch, What difference does it make which political party a particular candidate is with? Ron Paul is the only politician that makes any sense when he talks!      

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Posted On Nov 05, 2007

xyzsch, have you not heard of "right to work" states? Dems can't protect us from that. You can be let go for any reason at any time regardless of the situation in a "right to work" state. Tennessee, Texas, and Arizona are the ones I know of and I'm sure there are more. Didn't the New Orleans thing teach you that you have to take care of yourself and that you can do a better job than the government? Seems to me that the church groups did more than anyone else in that situation.  Also, If you work for a corporation, you can be a catalyst for change from within. Really.  RON PAUL 2008!


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Posted On Oct 12, 2007
This is another very good reason that we should not be getting our health insurance through our employer.  Ordinary medical expenses should be paid out of pocket, encouraging economizing behavior, while catastrophic insurance should be purchased directly by the insured.

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Posted On Oct 12, 2007
Excellent point.  Personally, I would prefer to pay for my own insurance rather than be on my employers plan.  Being on the verge of starting a new position I was going to go for the high deductable plan they offer but after reading this I may opt out of the whole thing and buy my own policy.  Apparently they give you money back in your paycheck if you opt out.  There is nothing I detest more than to have a business or institution of any type tell me how to live my life.  I smoke and I am fully accountable for it and fully responsible for it and willing to accept the consequences of my actions.  For me it has been a choice to either smoke or become obese.  I am getting closer to trying to find quit options again but I'm not there yet.  The protein nutritional plan works great for me but won't likely bring my cholesterol levels to the "widely accepted" levels.  What I truly want is to be self-employed but the inspiration has not yet arrived.     

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Posted On Oct 14, 2007
To say this article is disturbing is an understatement!  What  are they thinking........what are we thinking if we let them get away with this?

I read several of the other post and here are some considerations to some of the statements I read.

 It would be great if we all could afford to pay for our own insurance.  However,  even major medical for the private sector is cost prohibitive.  I myself hate the fact that I have paid for insurance for 10 years and never even got a primary doctor until this year......again under pressure from work to get an annual exam.  And I feel so much better now that my eyes, eyes and nose have been thoroughly  checked out....but I digress.

Patti D., you need to contact a lawyer......talk to a State attorney, they don't buckle under pressure from hospitals as easily as some, and if they take the case it would be no cost to you.

While not insuring the high risk employee seems like a solution, it would be a form of discrimination and then there would be the problem of who would determine who was high risk?
If you attend the New Years Eve Party and had one too many coctail, would that put you in the high risk category, and heaven forbid you go to the dessert table twice!

The long and short of this whole thing is our rights are being violated and not just the obvious ones,  like the right to eat what we wish, when we wish......but our basic right to privacy...after all, how are they going to know what we eat for breakfast unless they have systems in
place to monitor us?

Scary times my friends.  Very scary times!

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Posted On Oct 12, 2007
Here's a good one:  I lost a job at a hospital I worked at because I got MRSA sepsis, contracted when they put a central line in.  The findings from infection control?  GROSS CONTAMINATION AT TIME OF INSERTION!!!!!  But I lost my job because somehow it was MY fault but they were afraid I might be a carrier.

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Posted On Oct 12, 2007
Isn't that about right

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Posted On Nov 05, 2007

Just wait till they start testing the hospital staff. They will find that most of us are carriers. Then they will have no staff left to do the work.  They are going to start testing all patients when admitted to the hospital.  What next? Private room only and one on one caregiving? Want to see your healthcare cost go up even more? Scary

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Posted On Oct 12, 2007
One thing about all these comments i find comforting:  We support freedom.

We all are aware of the dangers inherent in eating processed foods.  I was at the conventional grocery earlier, there still are a couple of things i purchase there, & it amazes me that the more i learn  the less i believe the things on the shelves in such a store constitute "food."  And it desperately makes me want to be able to educate people.

But we here recognize that banning such junk, making it illegal, isn't the way to handle it.  Such heavy-handed dealings are likely to turn around & bite us, & the folks who decide what should or shouldn't be consumed usually have a huge conflict of interest.

By the way, i know this kind of thing has been in effect for a while now.  I interviewed with the Newport Beach Police Dept in 2003 & their policy for all employees was Non Smokers - absolute.  No smoking even off work.  While i'm not a smoker, & hate cigarette smoke, i had trouble believing such a mandate could be legal. 

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Posted On Oct 12, 2007
(I never know how many 2000 characters are, & my post locks up my computer if i go over!)

On the education issue:  I'm reading Dr. Mercola's book, Take Control of Your Health , & of course it has an incredible amount of info that is invaluable.   But it also makes me a bit sad, too, that this info isn't getting to the public.  Earlier i'd suggested a "Mister Roger's Neighborhood" type program to get this info out.  At least if the kids are watching, they may learn some & encourage the parents to learn too.  Maybe that would morph into an adult program as well.  But i have no ties to that industry & no money & so no way to know how to do it.  The web is important, of course, but if only we could get this to the public.  

Main stream media won't do it.  So my thought is:  Grassroots, of course.  If we each were to really get a handle on this & then do classes in our own communities.  Present the info for this web site, & the book.  I know that people are dying - literally - for direction & how to make healthy choices.  Maybe get that to grown into a support group something like what Weight Watchers does.  I don't know, i've no experience in such a thing, but people need education so badly.

Thoughts?

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Posted On Oct 14, 2007
Regarding freedom - I read what FDA guidelines are for a "healthy diet" and get chills when I think about what would happen if they, or any other Fascist, governmental organization dictates what we eat.  Our governor recently signed a law banning anyone from smoking in a car "for the health of the children."  This is nothing but a blatant attempt to manipulate every part of our lives, from what we do on our off time, the food we consume, to how we raise our children.  Fifty years ago all these governmental controls were known as common sense rules.  (Hey, don't consume eighteen hamburgers a week from McD's, don't sit in front a tube ten hours a day, etc. - common sense instilled in us from mom and dad).  Today in a dictator state such as what we are in we are deemed so ignorant by our high ranking officials that we need to be told what to eat, when to sit or lie down, what to read or watch on tv, does this not sound scary??!!??

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Posted On Oct 14, 2007
Yes, dempoolguy, it does.  And it is not getting better, which is even more scary.

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