CVS Pharmacy Wants Workers’ Health Information, or They’ll Pay a Fine
Last week, CVS was all over the news about their $600 fine/penalty for those employees who declined to submit to a “health screening” and provide the information to the company. The “things” that want disclosed seems rather benign on the surface ” submit their weight, body fat, glucose levels and other vitals” and according to the press release “CVS, , said the health screening was voluntary and the company would never see the test results.”
Of course the screening are voluntary… but for an employee making $10/hr… that is close to TWO WEEK’S take home pay. I am waiting for the news to report that a masked person walks up to another and while sticking a gun to their head… tells them that handing over all their valuables is TOTALLY VOLUNTARILY !
According to the ABC article CVS/Caremark has nearly 200,000 employees … so the money at stake is some $120 Million/year on the table.
What – to me – seems a little troublesome is “other vitals”… you test for blood glucose or cholesterol… you are also collecting DNA… properly stored DNA… doesn’t go bad… as genetic testing develops and matures… who knows what costly disease states can be predicted from a few mls of blood.
If you read the WIKI information pages on CVS/Caremark http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CVS/pharmacy
and scroll down to controversies … you will see where CVS/Caremark has been charged with bribing a state Senator … among other questionable business practices..
And a lot of those fines that they have paid while admitting no wrong doing…. don’t even show up… maybe Wikiepedia .. only had so much storage space and had to allow room for other information on people/entities
http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20101001006475/en/Texas-Pharmacies-File-RICO-Suit-CVS-Caremark
This is also the same corporation that is being sued by six pharmacies in TX for:
The suit claims CVS Caremark violates the firewall between the retail pharmacy and the pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) entities as required when the Federal Trade Commission approved the CVS and Caremark 2007 merger.
I know that if I was an employee of CVS… which I have never been – I would not let any entity that has a direct/indirect connection with CVS/Caremark have access to my “other vitals”.
IMO… this is a “can of worms” and there is no way that any employee individually or collectively will come out on top on this one. Is this like “playing the lottery” and know for sure that you are going to win and quit you job… before the drawning ?
Filed under: General Problems
This is like something out of George Orwell’s book “1984”.