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Comment by rtkwe | Hacker News Reader

> Pretty much every business is interested in lowering their healthcare costs.

My company does this by just charging people who smoke an additional couple dollars every paycheck for their healthcare.

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Do they also charge people who drink, are overweight, don't exercise? Seems odd to only single out smoking.

Those things are bad for your health, obviously, but aren't as easy to charge for since they aren't binary. How would you decide if someone was 'overweight' or didn't exercise? You couldn't base it on weight, because some people have a lot of muscle. How many hours do you need to exercise? What counts as exercise? How intense does it have to be? Do you charge someone who is 100 pounds overweight the same as someone who is 200? Or 10?

Smoking is binary, so you can easily price for it.

Smoking is not binary either; there's a world of difference between a couple cigarettes a week while at the bar vs. a pack a day every day.

And there's a world of difference between not inhaling smoke vs only inhaling smoke when you're drinking.

Inhaling smoke isn't good for you.

How do you know that?

(Also, if true, that still makes smoking not a binary)

> Inhaling smoke isn't good for you.

Sure. Neither is being overweight, which is just as measurable as nicotine use. (Probably more measurable, since you can't easily lie about being overweight.)

Funnily enough, there isn't (that is, there is some, but not so much as you would thing). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2865193/

It's the reason I've personally ceased my "smoking when drinking" habit.

That study is for “4-7 cigarettes per day”. Still quite heavy.

There are (or were I haven't checked recently) various freebies to encourage exercise and stuff but no direct discounts or fees.

My company gives bonuses for exercising.

Usually in the form of a discount for non-smokers

I can't remember exactly how it's set up but they're effectively the same thing.

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