Whether county employers can refuse to hire smokers or not is an issue that will be voted on by the Pima County, Ariz., Board of Supervisors this month, Tuscon.com reported on Friday.
The law would stop the county from hiring smokers and add a 30 percent surcharge to employees' health insurance plans if they smoke or use tobacco products. The policy would take effect in July 2015 if it's approved.
The new policy could save the county more than $1 million on health care costs annually as healthier workers replace tobacco users, county health officials said.
"Our taxpayers pay for our health insurance because we are self-insured," County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry said in an interview. "Anything we can do to reduce the cost is beneficial."
About 2,304 current county employees, or 32 percent of the county's employees, are tobacco users, and they cost the county about $13.4 million each year, the local health department said.
A doctor's note or drug test would be used to prove that employees had been without tobacco or nicotine for the past year. For those already employed, nonsmokers who sign an affidavit claiming they are without nicotine can sign up for a biweekly pay period health care discount of $5.
The ban does include e-cigarettes, but doesn't include methods used to quit smoking like patches, gum or sprays.
"It's not an attempt to punish anybody," said county Human Resources Director Allyn Bulzomi. "It's an attempt to encourage people to be healthy."
But the policy is being considered discriminatory by some, WPXI reported. One public health professor likened it to employment discrimination, which is illegal in many forms across the nation.
"Discrimination is essentially making employment decisions based on a group to which someone belongs rather than their qualifications for the job," the professor said.
Denying employment to smokers is legal in 29 states, but Arizona is not one of those states yet.
