An Ohio politician recently introduced a bill that would require random drug testing of Ohio Medicaid recipients. House Bill 440 proposes that an adult Medicaid recipient would have their Medicaid services terminated for six months each time;
1) The recipient fails to comply with random drug and alcohol testing;
2) The recipient fails to complete a treatment program following a determination of a drug and/or alcohol problem or;
3) The recipient had a second positive drug and or alcohol test.
Medicaid is a state and federally funded health program providing benefits to “low income” and “medically vulnerable” people.
This got me thinking about what would happen if such a bill was proposed in Alberta; every adult Albertan receiving Alberta Health Care would be subject to a random drug and alcohol test.
We could randomly drug test all adult Albertans; “weed out” those people who are taxing the health care system, punish them by taking away their and encourage them to go to rehab. As a tax paying Albertan, why wouldn’t I be in favour of this? Reward those who are drug free, lighten the load on the already burdened health care system and feel good about offering rehab services to addicts.
Given this line of thinking, should we not then consider taking health care away from cigarette smokers, obese adults…heck… even adults who don’t exercise according to the Canadian Physical Activity guidelines?
While I believe it makes sense to provide rehabilitation services to those people who may have a substance abuse problem, it doesn’t make sense to take away basic health care services. In essence, this would probably lead to further health problems for these individuals. Desperate times call for desperate measures; these individuals may resort to stealing in order to have money to care for themselves.
Clearly this bill would not pass in Canada. I’d like to think that Albertans are a little more liberal than that, or at least are educated enough to realize this isn’t the answer to the problem. Then again, I wouldn’t put it past a number of people who would probably support the idea in the ever increasingly “me first” climate we live in today.
Tags: drug and alcohol testing, health care, legislation, random drug testing