All year, I’ve been reading articles and even reporting on companies that are finding creative ways of tweaking employee health benefits to cut costs. Now it’s hit home. The other day I opened a letter from my company, Tribune about changes to our health plans. One stuck out like a sore thumb. Starting next year, employees who smoke (or use tobacco products) or who want to cover dependents that smoke will have to pay $100 a month on top of the medical premium. As Harry Caray would say, “Holy Cow!” That’s an extra $1200 a year, on top of the already high price of cigarettes. Fortunately I don’t smoke, but if I did, that’s enough to make me quit.

An Indianapolis company is even going so far as to charge their employees $5 a pay period if they use tobacco or their cholesterol or blood pressure gets too high. They could end up paying as much as $30 a paycheck.

These moves are not without precedent. The Chicago Tribune recently wrote about Henry Ford’s so-called Sociological Department. It was made up of 150 investigators who visited employees’ home and asked them about drinking, gambling, diet, savings and other personal things. Those who didn’t meet Ford’s standards within six months were fired. That was a century ago.

Today, it’s no secret; businesses have been trying to cut rising health-care costs by passing the expenses onto employees and encouraging them to be healthy. Pretty soon, not only will you have no excuse for not being healthy, you won’t be able to afford being unhealthy.