Here we go again. From Senator Clinton we now have more proposed restrictive legislation — another incumbent who just doesn’t understand economics, or just doesn’t respect freedom. Hillary Clinton’s Mother’s Day address 2006 contains another element of legislation that sounds compassionate, yet will hurt those she ostensibly wants to help.

Mrs. Clinton now supports a federal "Healthy Families" initiative that will require employers to give time off for workers with ailments. Employment is not something that every company can just offer on a free-as-you-please basis. Companies want to attract skilled and diligent workers with as many benefits as they can. Many companies already have flexible plans for those with ailments. Others can’t afford to do that without firing other workers, raising prices, or closing down.

Look who gets hurt by this "compassionate" legislation: job candidates with pre-existing ailments. When an employer has the choice of many applicants and has ample criteria for the decision, the candidate with a poor health history will not be chosen if one criterion becomes "we may have to pay for his condition". Indeed, Mrs. Clinton’s proposed legislation gives every incentive for companies to mine medical data banks for medical histories or their work force. That job is easier than ever now thanks to HIPAA, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act signed by Bill Clinton in 1996. HIPAA created standardized electronic databases of personal medical records. Doctors, employers, life insurers, and universities are now required to input information that…

"relates to the past, present, or future physical or mental health or condition of an individual, the provision of health care to an individual, or the past, present, or future payment for the provision of health care to an individual". — HIPAA, sec 262(a)

When companies can input, it won’t belong before they can mine output of private medical records.

Here’s the other group who will be hurt by this irresponsible legislation: current workers with ailments. Following a worker’s hospital visit, some employers will find ways to dismiss that worker to avoid long-term liability. Employees who fear this may begin to hide their ailment, innocuous as it might be, for fear of it bringing on employer scrutiny and less job security. Even if a below-average health employee has no intention of ever taking a day off to visit a doctor, he is now in jeopardy because his status makes him a candidate for the chopping block.

Mrs. Clinton’s proposal smacks of the same problems that affect the Family and Medical Leave Act ("FMLA"), which requires large employers to grant twelve workweeks per year to care for themselves, for a newborn, handle foster care issues, or care for a sick family member. While an estimated 4 million workers use the FMLA each year, we don’t know how many of these people would have been granted the same benefits absent government coercion. We also cannot know how many employers begin job discrimination BECAUSE of people who are making use of FMLA. We already know that employers engage in subtle discrimination against women in the hiring process when pregnancy is involved.

I worked for an employer where a Hiring Committee member told me "our hiring young married women is always more of a risk" because of their likely exit to have and care for children. He said that required paid maternity leave would make hiring even more challenging. He was no misogynist. He simply recognized the reality that liberals fail to: when you force companies to do things they can’t afford, you hurt their employees first, and their customers second. Hurting the "big bad insensitive owner" is a distant third.

Read it all here