Employee Accommodation

H.B. 4850
Rep. Pete Lund

S.B. 499
Sen. Roger Kahn

Current Status
H.B.4850 was introduced by Rep. Pete Lund on April 28, 2009 and referred to the House Health Policy Committee. S.B. 499 was introduced by Sen. Roger Kahn on April 30, 2009 and referred to the Senate Committee on Health Policy.

Description
The Employee Accommodation Act requires an employer to make work duty accommodations if an employee asserts a conscientious objection to participating in certain medical procedures or research. At this point, the only medical procedure for which a health care worker or health institution may refuse to participate in is abortion. This bill would protect health care providers and institutions with regard to any medical procedure or research that violates their deeply held religious or moral beliefs, including situations involving embryo research, cloning or genetic manipulation, withdrawing medical treatment or nutrition, dispensing abortion pills or morning after pills, etc.

This bill has moved up to priority status now that the process has started to overturn the federal Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) conscience protections formerly in place for health care workers. H.B. 4850 establishes a process by which an employer and employee sit down together to discuss which job functions would have to be reassigned to another worker if a treatment goes against his/her conscience, and document it in writing. The procedures in question, must not encompass a substantial portion of a typical work day. The employer cannot use this legislation to discriminate when hiring or when promoting the health care worker.

History
H.B. 4660 Health Care Conscientious Objector was introduced by former Rep. Brian Palmer on 4/25/07 and referred to the Committee on Judiciary where it was never scheduled for a hearing.

In the previous session, the Conscientious Objector - Provider bill (H.B. 4741) was introduced by Rep. Brian Palmer on 5/5/05 and referred to the House Health Policy Committee. S.B. 938 was introduced on 12/13/05 by Sen. Tom George and referred to the Senate Health Policy Committee. Neither bill was scheduled for a hearing.

H.B. 4745-46, the insurance bills, were introduced by Rep. Scott Hummel on 5/10/05 and were referred to the House Committee on Insurance, where they were reported out 9-6 on 3/23/06. On 4/26/06 both bills were passed in the House with a vote of 68-38 with one not voting. H.B. 4775, Conscientious Objector - Facilities bill was introduced by Rep. John Gleason on 5/11/05 and referred to the House Health Policy Committee where a hearing was never scheduled.