Smoking can be a costly habit, but not just for the smoker. Since the high-profile tobacco lawsuits of the ‘90s, the effect of smoking on increased federal and state health care costs is well-known. According to the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids, the total annual public and private cost of health care for smokers in the United State is $96 billion. The federal government and states together pay $30.9 billion and the states’ alone pay $13.3 billion of this total. The site also includes a state by state break down of these costs.
More recently, employers have begun paying more attention to the considerable costs to employer-provided health care within that $96 billion figure, and many have sought to cut costs through anti-smoking policies. As early as 2005, the World Health Organization announced that in an effort to promote a healthier lifestyle for its employees, it would no longer be hiring smokers. Such policies are especially popular with hospitals. As of 2010 Memorial Hospital in Chattanooga Tenn. and Saint Francis Medical Center in Cape Girardeau, Mo. signed policies to not hire tobacco users.
Increasingly, local governments are considering their own policies on hiring smokers, a topic brought up by a recent Knowledge Network question. In Palm Beach Fla. local school districts will be charging employees who smoke an additional monthly surcharge on their health insurance. Local health departments have been an especially common place to see such bans. In the Pierce County, Wash. health department, employees must sign an agreement not to smoke once being hired and Monterey County, Calif. has proposed legislation that would ban smokers from filling any health department positions. Some places have pushed the envelope even further, in 2008 Sarasota County, Fla. stopped hiring smokers in all departments and this year the City of Venice, Fla. will be voting on similar legislation.
While initial cost saving benefits may be tempting for local governments, these types of policies have been facing a lot of opposition from groups that find them purely discriminatory. Thirty states have banned employers from making employments decisions based on an individual’s off-duty smoking habits. Those who oppose these new anti-smoking policies fear most of all they will open the door to using other legal activities as a means for employee discrimination.
While some local governments pursue non-smoker hiring policies as a means to both promote healthy living and reduce insurance premiums, for others the concerns about discrimination may outweigh any cost savings. In the meantime, new bans on public smoking and the issue of cigarette litter will remain pressing topics for local government leaders and their communities regardless of whether or not municipal employees smoke.
For more on local governments and smoking, see these Knowledge Network resources: