A proposal from two GOP members of the Ohio House of Representatives would require welfare applicants to be screened and tested for drugs.
Tim Schaffer and Ron Maag want a two-year pilot program in three counties to test the idea, which would invalidate welfare payments to recipients if they test positive for drugs. The applicant would have to complete a short substance abuse screening test; if there was evidence of drug abuse, a drug test would be administered. But the children and dependents of the recipient would still receive benefits because a third party could accept the cash payment.
Maag told Cincinnati.com, “We’re not trying to hurt them in any way. We’re trying to get the person addicted to drugs some help.”
The bill would cost $100,000 annually, $6,250 for every 5,000 screening tests and roughly $30 per drug test. The bill would be funded by applicants who failed the drug test. The bill will be brought before the House on Wednesday.
More
DelMarVa's Premier Source for News, Opinion, Analysis, and Human Interest Contact Publisher Joe Albero at alberobutzo@wmconnect.com or 410-430-5349
7 comments:
why most drugs are out of your system with in 24-48 hours.
"The bill would be funded by applicants who failed the drug test."
How? Are they fining them if they test dirty?
I forget what state has already tried this, but they ended up spending more on the drug tests than they were giving out in benefits. Only government can blow money like that.
Wait till King Obama hears of this....You will be fired Whitey!!!!
3:38 I read that too. They know when they'll be tested, it's not like it's a surprise. So they refrain for a couple days.
More telling, would be the (much more expensive) hair sample analysis, that can show drug use as far back as a couple years.
Anonymous Anonymous said...
I forget what state has already tried this, but they ended up spending more on the drug tests than they were giving out in benefits. Only government can blow money like that.
August 7, 2015 at 3:38 PM
I read that too. Arizona was the first state to impose a testing program. In 2009, it began testing new welfare recipients when there was a "reasonable cause" to suspect illicit drug use. So how many of the 87,000 people subjected to the program have tested positive since then?
Just one. Saving 560 bucks.
The results are thin: According to USA Today, three years after the program began Arizona had tested more than 87,000 welfare recipients. The total number of drug cheats caught was exactly one — a single positive result, which saved the state precisely $560.
Checking in again in March, the Arizona Sonora News Service cited state Department of Economic Security figures which found that over the course of more than five years, "42 people have been asked to take a follow-up drug test and 19 actually took the test, 16 of whom passed. The other 23 were stripped of their benefits for failing to take the drug test."
That adds up to a grand total of three failed tests from 2009-2014. The net savings reaped from withholding benefits for those who either tested positive or failed to complete a drug test was around $3,500, once the $500 cost of testing the 19 is factored in, according to one state agency report. The haul is shockingly unimpressive when you consider the $1.7 million in savings state officials promised when they began the program.
Three. Three failed tests in 5 years of testing. The program needlessly embarrasses people who need public assistance and the cost-ratio benefit just isn't there for taxpayers. It's time to end these programs, not expand them. It's the moral and fiscally-conservative thing to do.
what a bunch of maroons! the bureaucrats who administer these programs have no intention of finding ways to diminish their constituencies!
Post a Comment