If you are employed and are a smoker, you might discover your boss has found another way to pick your pockets. A growing number of employers are requiring workers who use tobacco to pay higher insurance premiums.

Newton Medical Center recently informed employees that beginning July 1, it will impose a "tobacco-user surcharge" - $35 per two-week pay period - to employees who smoke or have a spouse or dependents who smoke.

Smokers who falsely state on a benefits enrollment form that they don't use tobacco "will face disciplinary action up to and including termination," according to a memo issued to Newton Medical Center employees.

Wichita school employees who use tobacco regularly - more than 10 times a year - pay $600 a year more for health coverage. Workers pay another $600 a year if their spouse smokes.

How much more discrimination are smokers going to take before they start pushing back? Perhaps they might consider quitting those dead-end jobs and taking their futures into their own hands. Profit hungry companies have understood for years how company provided health insurance acts to enslave people to their jobs.

There are other options for smokers who refuse to work for these discriminatory employers. And, with Obamanized Socialized Health Care around the corner, anyone should be able to get coverage regardless of their employment status.