Company fires all employees who smoke!

[rah]

As a side note.
And, out of the about 100 people (ten years later) I know of 5 that are dead. 3 gays, 1 smoker, 1 black female.
It's not fair to generalize about anything.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Japher
Interesting: http://www.corporateresourcecouncil....dden_Costs.pdf

This study says that the cost is 17.1% higher to insure same sex couples vs. opposite sex couples...

That's from a "small group plan" in California (probably San Fransico "

Small sample.

You also realice the CRC is:

The goal of all CRC resources and programs is to equip corporate executives to establish family- and faith-friendly employee policies based on sound legal, financial and other business principles.

Wonder if they have an agenda.

[Asher]

More examples from far larger samples: http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewCulture.a...20011018a.html

Proctor & Gamble says:

Ulrey also said P&G expects the costs incurred from offering domestic partnership benefits to be minimal.

"We expect the cost impact of the new change to be too small to measure," she said.

The only people saying otherwise are the religious nuts further down in the article, shouting about AIDS and family values and cheapening marriage, etc.

[Japher]

Wonder if they have an agenda

Still, Asher, when I search "gay men, homosexual, high risk" I get a ton of sites that say gay men are more likely to have a myriad of diseases ranging from HIV to depression. Even AIDS prevention and gay sites say so.

Similarly, if I search "smoking,high risk" I get similar relations to lung problems and cancer.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Japher
Still, Asher, when I search "gay men, homosexual, high risk" I get a ton of sites that say gay men are more likely to have a myriad of diseases ranging from HIV to depression. Even AIDS prevention and gay sites say so.

Similarly, if I search "smoking,high risk" I get similar relations to lung problems and cancer.

Most of the results I got were from Christian sites and columnists discussing how the life expectancy of gay men was 41.

The real results and numbers show it's practically no different.

It doesn't matter if misconceptions about gays is widespread on the internet (stop the presses!), when the real companies such as P&G have shown it's actually a total non-issue.

[Japher]

http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/320/7248/1510

Any one of the studies here will state that gay men are more likely to have health problems do to their actions than are straight men...

And these studies are conducted by credible companies

[Asher]

Originally posted by Japher

http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/320/7248/1510

Any one of the studies here will state that gay men are more likely to have health problems do to their actions than are straight men...

And these studies are conducted by credible companies

It's interesting the site identifies the culprit being high-risk sexual behavior, and not being gay.

In any case, again, it's a moot point. Gay people also tend to be more fit and healthy than straight people, and apparently in the end it gets evened out, as the costs are not any higher.

Not to mention other societal issues -- that report is based on gay men in London and area only, and in the late 90s...

[Japher]

So why does the FDA have a ban on gay men donating blood?

Why are there federal commities, organizations, and health clinics dedicated to the prevention of disease in homosexuals?

How come almost every STD lables gay men as high risk?

And almost every type of cancer lables smokers as high risk?

I guess doctors are just stupid or something.

[Asher]

Also see this:

http://www.ziplink.net/~glen/compaqplus/domestic.html

Employers are using the excuse of high expenses as their main reason behind not offering these same benefits to their homosexual employees. They think it will cost them more in health care contributions for homosexual employees than it does for heterosexual ones. Their main concern? AIDS. In reality, many current domestic partner plans relate that: "Less than one percent of the workforce participates, AIDS health care benefit costs come to only about one-tenth those of a premature baby, gay men do not always get AIDS, and AIDS is not exclusive to gay men" (Partners-Domestic).

The University of Iowa Task Force did a study to find out how much HIV-related expenses would cost them if benefits were offered to its employees, faculty, and staff. Using an estimation of 8,000 employees that would be eligible for the program and a high-range participation of 152 of the University's faculty and staff, they determined the total cost would be $328,016. The total cost of health claims of *all* employees in 1990 was $18,971,309. The HIV-incurred costs would only be .8% to 1.7% of those costs. These figures show that employers should not be overly concerned about outrageous medical bills for their homosexual employees. In fact, preganancy claims are the highest costs that get charged to employers (University).

Law firms that have started to cover partners of homosexual employers have found the costs a lot less than they had anticipated. Milbank, Tweed estimated their costs to be $137,000 for the year when in fact they turned out to be less than $10,000 (Barge, 34). Other law firms claimed their numbers to be similar. The reason that these costs are so low is that many employees don't take advantage of the benefit, either out of fear of homophobia or because their partners already have coverage at their own places of employment. Some employers who have tried to implement a benefits plan for domestic partners are finding that their insurance carriers refuse to offer the service. Fortunatley, because these insurers are realizing that the costs between homosexuals and heterosexual domestic partners are not vastly different, they are becoming less severe in their denial of benefits for homosexuals. A partner at Wachtell, Lipton, Marc Wolinsky says, "Within the next two years, not offering health benefits to gay and lesbian employees will become the exception rather than the rule" (Barge, 35).

[Asher]

Originally posted by Japher
So why does the FDA have a ban on gay men donating blood?

Why are there federal commities, organizations, and health clinics dedicated to the prevention of disease in homosexuals?

How come almost every STD lables gay men as high risk?

And almost every type of cancer lables smokers as high risk?

I guess doctors are just stupid or something.

We're talking about cost to the companies here.

And the FDA/STD thing is decades old and comes from stereotypes.

[Japher]

I can through links at you all day too... proving my point.

[rah]

How can you use the P&G example? The quote you used had the word EXPECT in it twice. Not exactly debate material.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Japher
I can through links at you all day too... proving my point.

Proving your point of what? Sexually promiscuous men are more prone to STDs?

That would be stellar if anyone was arguing against it, or if it was relevant.

[Japher]

Dismissing my links because they don't support your opinion is not arguing Asher.

P&G did their own study and believe that the ppl they will hire will not cost the company much more money. Great! I hope they're right. I would assume that someone who works for such a company would be a much more grounded person.

However, studies show that gay men are more permiscuous and are more likely to contract STDs.

Some people take that to mean that they would cost more to insure and provide health care for in general.

And it does! At least on a national basis. All the research going to AIDs which is predominant in homosexuals, all these organizations, all these drugs, etc... It costs a lot of money.

The same there are organizations and studies for lung cancer.

The same way some ppl believe that all smokers will die from lung cancer.

I was a pack a day smoker when I started working here. I have never been to the doctor as a part of my smoking, and I quit... Did I cost the company anything? No. Should I have been fired because I smoked?

[rah]

One question. Do you think it would be fair to fire sexually promiscuous men?