It's bad enough you have to worry about them while they're under your company's roof—now your boss may want you to think about what your employees do after hours. In an effort to control rising health-care costs, employers increasingly are trying to regulate off-duty employee behavior. The fear is their Monday Night Football nachos binge is racking up the cost of the health care your company provides them. But these employers may be overstepping the bounds of individual privacy, according to Pepper Hamilton, a multi-practice law firm.
"For example, more employers are contending health insurance claims of smokers and overweight workers are higher than those for non-smokers and non-overweight employees," says Susan Lessack, a partner with Pepper Hamilton. "In response to these higher costs, more employers are instituting bans on hiring smokers, even if they only smoke during off-duty hours, and/or are charging more for health insurance to smokers, overweight workers, and other categories of employees."
Although smokers and overweight individuals are the two groups most often targeted, they are not alone. Other groups that may be subject to such "lifestyle" regulations include people with hypertension or high serum cholesterol levels, social drinkers, and sports enthusiasts. "Arguably, there are health risks associated with all daily activities—from smoking to participating in extreme sports to simply walking down the street," says Lessack. "That begs the question of which categories of employees will be the next to be charged higher health premiums, or to otherwise have their employment affected adversely by their lifestyle choices?"
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