Posted on 07/09/2014 6:36:40 AM PDT by rktman
Starting next year, Anne Arundel Medical Center in Annapolis will require potential employees to pass a drug test–detecting nicotine.
This so-called “job screening” will bar any applicants who smoke cigarettes, cigars, pipes, snuff, hookah, and even e-cigarettes from being eligible for employment. While the hospital already has a smoking ban on the premises and surrounding sidewalks, this policy forbids new employees from consuming tobacco anywhere, at any time.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailycaller.com ...
The solution to the problem does not seem all that perplexing to me. Insurance costs should be based on your measure of exposure for the insurance company. Teenage drivers, those with tickets, and those who have had accidents pay more for auto insurance. If you weigh 300 pounds, never exercise, and smoke, you should pay higher premiums than someone who takes care of himself. If you engage in the highest risk factor, male to male anal sex (which is now celebrated in elementary school curriculum), your premiums should be through the roof.
Maybe employers should bring back the curfew whistles used by factories here in the USA in the early 20th century. When the economy is bad, employers can do anything they wish...
It’s worse than just cigarettes. The electronic records keeping will also show if you’re taking the meds as prescribed, if you’re eating too much fat or too much sugar, etc. How does that work without an implant?
First of all, you’d better purchase those drugs the doctor prescribes whether you take them or not. They know what you’re buying. And that also covers what you’re eating. That little debit card tells them everything. Plus, when they do their regular blood testing they’ll check to see what drugs are in your system.
Freedom no longer rings!
Employees will me required to submit a diary showing their daily food intake.
I think he meant employers, not doctors.
See my post above. They DO know what you eat.
Sadly, most will say “Well, it’s for our own good. Besides, President Obama has our interests at heart. He loves us so much!” And that’s just the liberals.
Only if it is heterosex! Homo Sex is approved!
Well, I didn’t think it necessary to include something so obvious, given the context. Point taken.
I worked in a car dealership in the 1990's. The owner decided to start drug testing. Over 70% of the employees tested positive. After firing all the productive employees the dealership also lost half it's business.
That dealership went broke, got bought out by another owner, moved into a new building, and went out of business.
When the owner gathered the employees to announce the drug testing program, I went and got my truck. My tools were rolling out the door before the dipstick finished his speech. I went to work for an independent shop. I had a job the next day. This was 15 years before pot was legal in Colorado.
Those of us who have fought with conservative health Nazis here at FR have been endlessly pointing out this slippery slope. But you will still have freepers who insist that fat people need to be controlled - probably because obesity has been demonized in the popular press and is not aesthetic according to puritans. And the same people find cigar and cigarette smokers unpleasing. I, of course, find them sexy and endearing.
What horsecrap. This IS what freedom looks like. The hospital is free to set the terms of employment, and every employee is free to determine whether or not to work there.
Get the government out of the picture and the free market will determine whether or not this is a sustainable way to run a healthcare business. If the hospital’s policy is so restrictive that no one wants to work there, then the policy will have to be changed or the hospital will go out of business. Let the marketplace decide.
The hospital is equally free to hire ONLY smokers if it wanted to - why is no one doing that, do you think?
Oh, no doubt the should be able to set the terms of employment for what you do on the clock. But, I suppose their rules covering 24/7/365 may make one consider employment someplace else. Like a place that only cares how well you do your job. Then again they might push any medical coverage to one of the wonderful obiecare plans. ;>}
I don’t know why you can’t be in both camps. Let employers hire and fire at will. If they have a policy that intrudes into your private life and you don’t like it, look for a job elsewhere. If enough good people leave or avoid the employer, he willo soon see what his fascism is costing him.
Word will spread fast about the overbearing employment policies of such an organization.
Baltimore born-and-raised but I will never go back, other than for family visits.
That’s why my former employer never got my cell phone number. If you’re not payin’ me 24/7 then I’ll see you at work otherwise plan accordingly. Or set up a “call in” program to see if some catastrophe has occurred requiring you to come in.
So even if you consent to your employer doing a test, they need a warrant?
Ridiculous.
Cause that’s what we’re talking about here. This is voluntary. You choose to work there. You choose to smoke. You choose to cost your employer more money in sick leave and health care. You choose the consequences.
Gay guys have always held jobs and often good jobs, at that. At one time they had to be in the closet and not come in bragging about their conquests. As I’ve written before, we used to ignore gay employees who would show up Monday morning with blackened eyes and scratched faces. Now, in those days, I suppose, you could silently refuse to hire somebody who was gay or suspected to be gay. But no one was impolite about it.
Cash only. Loyalty cards? Data base for exactly what you purchase everytime you use them. No thanks. Sad frickin’ situation, I agree.
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