Free to choose is free to pay

And there's no such thing as a free ride on your employer's health insurance;

A federal judge in Minnesota has ruled that Honeywell Inc. could begin penalizing workers who refuse to take medical or biometric tests.

Tests designed to see who is costing more to insure for medical care.

The tests, required by Honeywell in a recent policy change, measure blood pressure, cholesterol and glucose, as well as check for signs that an employee has been smoking. Employees who decline to take the tests could be fined up to $4,000 in surcharges and increased health costs.

'Fined' meaning that the employees in question have to absorb their higher costs, rather than push them off on more fit co-workers.

The EEOC filed the lawsuit last month in Minneapolis on behalf of two Minnesota employees of Honeywell. The case could define how far an employer can go in shifting health care costs to employees based on their behavior.

 Which ignores that Honeywell will be, at the same time, shifting health care costs away from other employees based on their behavior.