Health Information Technology

Companies have the right to hire whomever they want and can screen applicants in any way they like. They can’t discriminate or should not. The Scotts Company took an approach that I can’t support. How far are we willing to go when it comes to controlling lives of others? What is next? Blood type tests, weight test, cholesterol test, HIV tests. If Scotts is taking this approach I wonder how many new hires are over 50. Hiring an older person can result in larger premiums as these employees are more likely to use their health benefits. In large organizations such as Scotts the risk is spread over and all employees are paying small share of increased cost. It is a shame that such a large company ignores other qualities that their applicant brings. The hiring process should be based on identifying qualities of an applicant and weaknesses such as smoking should be disregarded. Not hiring smokers will not decrease the cost. The cost is increasing due to many other issues not spoken off anywhere in this article. The cost of healthcare increases due to errors like one in Jessica’s Story, due to abuse of Medicaid system by uninsured. Hospitals and physicians pay millions of dollars every year in malpractice and this cost is passed on to a consumer. Also uninsured Americans are visiting emergency rooms since they can’t be denied healthcare at these due to laws. These uncovered expenses at ER are again passed on a consumer.