Sprint Corp. employees who don't smoke will get some relief on health-care cost increases next year.

told employees this week that nonsmokers will pay less for health coverage than smokers. Despite the discount, Sprint employees still will pay more for health care next year

“We want to encourage people to engage in healthy lifestyles,” said Sprint's vice president

The action is designed to improve employee health and contain Sprint's annual health-care costs of half a billion dollars

some warned of potential problems.

For example, should employers give workers a financial incentive to maintain a healthy weight?

“It is typical for tobacco users to pay more for individual insurance policies than nontobacco users,” said Larry Akey, a spokesman for the Health Insurance Association of America.

Holland said the nonsmoking incentive, which takes effect in January, is a first for Sprint. He said Sprint might consider similar initiatives involving other lifestyle choices, but did not know what those other issues might involve.

The Canadian Institute of Actuaries calculated that the average 35-year-old male smoker is expected to live an additional 37.31 years, compared with an additional 44.54 years for the average 35-year-old male nonsmoker.

Holland said the nonsmoking discounts will mean average savings of $16 a month for individuals and $40 a month for families.

But Kristi Ernsting, a spokeswoman for Hallmark Cards Inc., said it does not consider smoking or other lifestyle changes in calculating what employees pay toward their health-care costs.

“At Hallmark, we take an employee-oriented approach to health-care coverage, with the goal of making health care accessible and affordable to all of our employees and their families,” she said.

Holland said Sprint's health-care costs will continue to rise next year, despite all the changes.

“It's going to go up some, but it will be a lot less than it would have gone up, for both employees and the company, had we not taken these actions,” he said.

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Okay, so the average individual nonsmoker spends $16 a month subsidizing smokers while somehow smokers cost a family man $40 a month. I don't get it. Have they been screwing the family man all this time?

Looking at the individual nonsmoker, that $16 a month translates to $192 a year he or she spends subsidizing smokers. What a bargain!

If someone works at Sprint for 47 years (from age 18-65) and puts that $16 a month savings into an annunity at say 5%, at retirement it will be $36,228.48. If inflation runs at 2% the actual amount would be $19,768.03 in today's dollars. Not bad. I'd take it if I was a nonsmoker. But I'm not, so I'll take what's coming to me instead:

The average smoker in my state, Wisconsin, (1 1/2 packs a day-547.50 packs a year) pays $213.53 a year in federal excise tax and $421.58 in state excise taxes. The MSA adds up to about another $250.

This money no doubt subsidizes the nonsmoker who, according to the Canadian Institute of Actuaries numbers, will use 7.23 years more social security, pension, and medicare than the average smoker.

I believe the average social security check is around $900 a month. That's $78,084 in today's dollars.

If Sprint's pension pays $450 a month that's another $39,042 the nonsmoker receives in excess. That still leaves medicare.

With pension alone, the only thing Sprint has any control over, the nonsmoker wins. But he also wins by taking the smoker's unused social security and medicare.

If I worked for Sprint I would pay the $16 (or $40) but demand that either nonsmokers pay more into the pension plan or that smokers pay less. I would also ask the federal government why I am paying into a retirement system at the same rate as the nonsmokers who use it longer.

In the case of the government though, I would use CDC numbers (13-14 years of life lost) which means I won't collect one thin dime from them.

Yeah, it sure is fair for smokers to pay into a system for 47 years, the whole time that same government is telling them they're going to die the day they were supposed to start collecting it.