Health Insurance Costs Versus Privacy
- Health Insurance Costs Versus Privacy
- Computers by Design
(CBD) is a small computer systems sales and service business located in
the Midwest. The owners of CBD, Abigail, Megan, and Andy, are concerned
about rising health care insurance costs. Abigail has researched the
issue, and has learned that CBD can better control insurance costs by
only hiring people who are less likely to make claims—the healthy, the
fit, and the nonaddicted. She has proposed to the other owners a
two-step program.
- First, CBD would conduct preemployment health
screenings, including voluntary genetic testing. It would not hire
anyone who smokes or uses drugs, has any genetically linked propensity
for an expensive disease, or is not physically fit.
- The second
step would be to give every employee a 12-month notice to stop using
tobacco and nonprescription drugs and to submit to random, monthly
testing. Employees would also be placed on a fitness and weight control
plan. Professional assistance would be available at no cost to help them
stop using tobacco and drugs and to help them meet weight and fitness
targets. Employees who meet the goals would be allowed to stay with CBD.
Those who refuse would be given a severance package and discharged.
- What
are the legal issues involved here? Which of the measures proposed by
Abigail are legal, and which are not? Explain the legal issues involved
and reference specific pages from your readings to support your
conclusions.
- To what extent is an industry you are
familiar with unionized and engaged in collective bargaining? Is the
industry comprised of nonunion employees, unionized and nonunionized
employees, or unionized employees? Explain why the industry does or does
not have collective bargaining, and discuss what trends might tend to
change the current situation in the near future. Be sure to incorporate
both legal principles and relevant labor economics facts in your
response. Provide references as appropriate.
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