My employer (government) is doing a tobacco screening program for health insurance. If I allow them to screen my blood, and it is clean of tobacco products, I will receive a $50.00 per month rebate on my health insurance premium. Generally I am in favor of this. However…
I am afraid of what other things they will test for. Are they secretly drug screening? Possibly checking my fat profile? I am just hesitant about this slippery slope.
I can’t imagine why the gummint would secretly screen for drugs - every job I had (with the Feds) required random drug tests.
Maybe I’m naive, but I can’t see any employer dealing with the monitoring and administrative, not to mention HIPAA, nightmares in comprehensive blood screenings of employees, as well as the cost.
Government taking blood samples. What could possibly go wrong? We know they would never lie or spy on us so why not?
Tobacco, or nicotine? I wonder what they’d do if someone was using NRT products.
If it helps, there is no one test that will screen everything that id in your blood.
Every item they screen for requires a different test. And each test cost more money.
And we all know how the government hates wasting money, so I wouldn’t worry about it.
I’m having trouble articulating what I don’t like about it without sounding like a paranoid old coot. I am afraid though that the results might be used to bully people.
The program we are using allows for cessation products and will even provide them free of charge. The program is being touted as tobacco cessation, thought they are probably testing for tobacco using nicotine levels.
I swear, I’m JUST a nicotine addict, I’ve never TOUCHED tobacco! Heh
Pretty sure if you agree to a tobacco blood test, and they test for something else, and you feel the consequences of this un-authorized testing, you could be a lawsuit millionaire.
I would probably join such a program. $50 a month isn’t big money and hardly worth the trouble of getting blood drawn. Still - I know I would pass and it’s a free $50.
My problem with programs like this is that insurance is supposed to be a pooling of money to cover unexpected expenses. If we could be perfectly tested and catagorized by our habits and medical histories, so that all the people in my pool are exactly like me, what would be the point of insurance?
Because there’s one morbidity/mortality risk factor that can’t easily be eliminated:
you’re alive.
You can eat right, get plenty of exercise, and eschew recreational drugs, and that will put you in the low-risk pool, but not in the no-risk pool. There’s still a chance you’ll get cancer/MS/arthritis/diabetes/whatever, and this is why you’ll still want insurance.
Fed employee for 15+ years now, never had a drug test of any kind.
Fed here too, and while I’ve never been tested the option is still there for us.
This has been going on at my place of employment (private company, a hospital) for many years.
Every year we have to ‘qualify’ for insurance by undergoing a screening that takes height, weight, blood pressure, and blood tests for diabetes, cholesterol and nicotine (and metabolites).
If you ‘opt out’ of the screening you automatically pay $600 a year more for your health insurance.
If you ‘opt in’, your insurace will automatically be less unless your are flagged for weight, cholesterol or nicotine. If flagged, you will pay the $600 premium on insurance but can have that $600 reduced by proving you visited your personal doctor for the cholesterol flag, and/or partaking in the company sponsored stop smoking program for the nicotine flag. There is no program for the weight flag.
On the smoking, you do not actually have to quit, just partake in the program. For the cholesterol screen, you do not have to actually take meds or lower your numbers- just see the doctor.
This pisses me off every year. I really hate giving blood to my employer (I know, it’s supposed to be the insurance company but it happens at work and is workplace related, so it feels like ‘work.’).
No one has ever been tagged at work for things not stated in the blood tests- no drugs, alcohol or genetic stuff. Still, I’m not comfortable giving blood to my employer. The release clearly states the blood becomes their property and I presume they could do anything with it that they seem fit. So far, they have not seem fit to use our blood for anything other than the stated purpose.
I was just speaking about this in one of the ACA threads. Having to give blood to my employer is one of the reasons I wish I could partake in the health care exchanges- to get a separation between my employer and my health care.
See, Edward, it is an option, but it RARELY happens. Unless you operate heavy machinery, or act like a complete idiot, it just doesn’t seem to happen. It costs too much to be testing employees that are doing their job.
$50 doesn’t seem like a lot, but that is $600 a year I could be spending elsewhere. I don’t really see the point of insurance - we should just cut the middle man out and make medical coverage that much cheaper.
How long after stopping will the test show a positive? Couldn’t someone stop using tobacco, test clean, then start again repeating yearly if necessary?
The hospital I work for discounts your insurance premiums if you undergo the testing, and you get bonuses in your paycheck if you control any existing high blood pressure/high cholesterol/high blood sugar (or do not have those issues), or if you are of normal BMI or are at least not getting worse on an elevated BMI.
They’ve been doing this for a few years now, and considering that the most recent report had something like a quarter of employees who were previously diagnosed with diabetes/prediabetes weren’t controlling their blood sugar during last year’s testing (and you schedule the appointment yourself, and you get a few months’ warning that it’s coming up again), well… I do not at all blame companies for wanting to give incentives for their employees to take better care of themselves. I mean, you can debate the effects of cholesterol or obesity all you want, but not controlling your blood sugar has straightforward, demonstrable negative effects on your body, including nerve damage, potential for amputation, damage to heart/kidneys/eyes, and so on.
On the topic of tobacco - I know we sign a statement just attesting to whether or not we smoke, but since I don’t, I just can’t remember if there is any attempt at testing for it.
And since I work for a hospital, there is a urine test for drugs before starting and you can be screened later if they think there’s cause.
If it was that easy to stop smoking, then no one would smoke anymore. 
When talking to my life insurance nurse, I asked about the tobacco test. My company tests for nicotine, so an e-cig smoker pays the penalty as well. I assume that applies to people who chew or anyone who uses a patch or gum or any cessation aid. :smack:
My employer drug test preemployment and for every ‘ocurrance’ that would be considered a work related injury or accident. We don’t partakin in “worker’s comp.”
The yearly nicotine test would test positive for any nicotine use- patches, e-cigs, dip…
Ask for the literature related to the screening. It should explain the chain of custody, who will perform the testing, and what tests may be performed.
What state are you in? :dubious:
Texas.