Pink Slips---Smoke 'Em If You've Got 'Em

An employer sets smoking as a condition for termination.

FDR's ingenious scheme of payroll withholding continues to reap unintended consequences. If we each paid for our own healthcare, the market would punish smokers and anyone else with unhealthy habits with increased costs.

That said, the employer is perfectly within their rights to hire whomever they please, in my view (if not the law's). They are certainly right that in paying for health benefits nonsmokers subsidize smokers' premiums.