medical office jobs in california

If a person has been granted a job at a “California” medical institution with an offer in writing, but later the offer is pulled because he refuse the MMR vaccination due to religious reasons, would it be illegal since he/she has been discriminated based on “religion?” Let's assume two scenarios: a) he'll only work in a call center with no client contact. b) he works at various doctor offices and throughout the institution. Is there a California State or Federal law that provides an exemption to immunization, and if so, does the exemption part of the law covers all business types? The institution I have in mind is a California public institution. I am particularly interested to hear from lawyers who are in the employment and health profession. I'm given the reason that if I'm not vaccinated, then I can infect others, however, I disagree in that this issue deals with me. If others are exposed, and they are not vaccinated, then it was their choice. Thanks

I'm in california Ok so i got fired from a (sales) job i started 4 months ago. I was diagnosed with anxiety disorder about a year ago and have been doing well with my medication. When I started my new job everything became extremely stressful, because it was a new company (6 months old) everyone was scrambling around trying to figure out what to do. Anyway after about 2 months I made my first sale (high end b2b sales position), second in my sales team of 10 to get a sale since our hire date. Anyway after about 4 months the stress was taking over me so I let my psychiatrist know what was going on, and I advised my manager as well of my condition and that I may need to take a stress leave. After about a week I got called into the manager's office letting me know they were terminating my employment due to my performance, yet there are other members of my team whom after 4 months still haven't closed a deal. Do I have grounds to sue since i've only been there for 4 months?

I am in California - I gave my Company a doctor's note for my disability and the return to work date was unknown due to the fact I just had surgery and my doctor was unsure, well my HR at work did not like the unknown date and called my doctors office and asked for a new letter to be sent to my company - HR never asked me for a new letter. For some reason my doctors office did this and put my return to work date as a Monday and I had my release to work doctor appointment on the following day, Tuesday - so my work is hinting at job abandonment. Here is my question: Is it legal for my work to call and ask for a letter from my doctor if I have never signed a release to either party? And if not - what can I do about it? I have talked to the Ca Medical Board and they said it was not legal for my doctor to release this to my work. Any help and direction would be great! Thanks

Addiction is an illness. Narcotics abuse is an illness. Logically, the purchasing, possession and abuse of a drug by an addict is as much of a health concern as it is a legal one. Narcotics abuse is undoubtedly a more emotionally complicated crime than other nonviolent offenses such as theft and vandalism, but early attempts to curb abuse lacked the necessary breadth to get addicts clean. Incarceration is not an effective method of freeing drug users from the substances on which they depend. You cannot always beat a beast into submission, and the national "war on drugs," as it is currently framed, attempts to do just that. It aims to prevent drug abuse and crimes through the enforcement of strict, blanketed penalties for citizens who violate. Although national policies on drug prohibition state the goal is to promote public health, more funding, both on a national and local level, is allocated toward criminal investigations and prosecution of drug users than toward education and rehabilitation. The fruitless brute-force methods established at a federal level are also standard at the local level. The Los Angeles Police Department made 26,131 arrests for violent and property-related crimes in 2003, according to a statistical report released by the chief of police. The same year, the LAPD made 27,486 narcotics arrests. In short, police officers arrested 1,300 more citizens for narcotics violations than for murders, rapes, thefts, aggravated assaults and larcenies combined. Despite the widespread arrests for narcotics-defined crimes in 2003, the effects the arrests had on usage was negligible. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the number of adult users and abusers remained at a flat line. Crime statistics show that harsh sentencing for nonviolent drug possession convictions is ineffective in deterring repeat offenses, but further analysis reveals that incarceration for those first offenses could increase the probably of a second offense. Relapse rates are more than 70 percent from all forms of criminal justice interventions and corrections-oriented approaches alone, according to the U.N. Office on Drug and Crime. California took a step in the right direction in November of 2000 when it passed Proposition 36 - the initiative that allows people with first- and second-time drug possession convictions to receive drug treatment instead of incarceration - but implementation and funding issues have prevented the proposition from being wholly successful. Officials at the district attorney's office told the L.A. Weekly that they had expected the primary patients enrolling in the rehabilitation programs to be recreational users - not full-blown addicts. The money allocated to fund rehabilitation programs and medical treatment is insufficient for the more typical, heavily addicted individuals who frequently require longer, more expensive treatments in residential facilities instead of 12-step outpatient program. Recent state and county cutbacks have been devastating to already strained programs made possible by Prop. 36. To further complicate matters, the sheer size of the county coupled with the lack of money makes proper regulation of the program near impossible to assess. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, effective drug treatment programs combine the necessary medical aid and social services required to get the addicted individual back on track. Prop. 36 has made headway in providing Californians in need with a chance at restored chemical freedom, but without additional well-funded social welfare programs such as job placement services, access to medical and mental health treatment facilities, and counseling services, the success of the legislation is extremely limited. A more compassionate solution to the drug problem is not only more humane, it's more cost effective. Every dollar spent on drug and alcohol abuse treatment saves the public $7, according study findings released by the state in 1994. To successfully combat drug abuse and drug-related crime in California, the state needs to ensure that allocating funding for rehabilitation programs is a priority. In addition to the court-mandated programs created by Prop. 36, the city needs to make comprehensive voluntary rehabilitation programs accessible to drug addicts who want to change before they're picked up by the police. The earlier people are given a hand to make the change, the sooner they will. It's easy to demonize drug addicts and dismiss jail sentences that still too frequently follow possession convictions, but blame doesn't create change. An addict with hopeless prospects has a hard time finding motivation to get clean, but if the society around that addict is willing to offer guidance, support and the promise of brighter future for the willing, the incentive to get sober suddenly becomes tangible . Compassion must become a fundamental element in the rehabilitation system, and compassion starts with understanding. Prop. 36 was a great start, but there's still a long road ahead.

Cost of illegal immigration in California estimated at nearly $9 billion By: EDWARD SIFUENTES - Staff Writer California's nearly 3 million illegal immigrants cost taxpayers nearly $9 billion each year, according to a new report released last week by the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a Washington, D.C.-based group that promotes stricter immigration policies. Educating the children of illegal immigrants is the largest cost, estimated at $7.7 billion each year, according to the report. Medical care for illegal immigrants and incarceration of those who have committed crimes are the next two largest expenses measured in the study, the author said. Pro-immigrant groups and Latino researchers dispute the federation's findings, calling them biased and incomplete. Jack Martin, who wrote the report, said Thursday that the $9 billion figure does not include other expenses that are difficult to measure, such as special English instruction, school lunch programs, and welfare benefits for American workers displaced by illegal immigrant workers. "It's a bottom of the range number," Martin said. The federation is one of the nation's leading lobbying groups aimed at curbing immigration into the country. Authors of the report say it culls information from the U.S. Census and other studies addressing the cost of illegal immigration into the country to draw its conclusions. Gerardo Gonzalez, director of Cal State San Marcos' National Latino Research Center, which compiles data on Latinos, criticized the report. He said it does not measure some of the contributions that immigrants make to the state's economy. "Beyond taxes, these workers' production and spending contribute to California's economy, especially the agricultural sector," Gonzalez said. Immigrants, both legal and illegal, are the backbone of the state's nearly $28 billion-a-year agricultural industry, Gonzalez and other researchers say. More than two-thirds of the estimated 340,000 agriculture workers in California are noncitizens, most of whom are believed to be illegal immigrants, according to a 1998 study on farmworkers prepared for the state Legislature. Local farmers say migrant farmworkers are critical to their businesses, and without them they would have to close their farms or move their operations overseas. Martin disagrees. He said illegal immigrants displace American workers by taking low-skilled jobs, keep wages low by creating an overabundance of workers and stifle innovation by reducing the need for mechanized labor. "The product of the illegal immigrant is not included (in the report) because if that is an essential product it will get done one way or another," Martin said. Employers "would have to pay better wages or invest money on mechanization." Martin's study looks specifically at the costs of educating illegal immigrants' children, providing medical care to illegal immigrants and jailing those convicted of committing crimes. The report estimates the total cost at $10.5 billion each year, but that is offset by about $1.7 billion in taxes that illegal immigrants pay. The study assumes that there are about 1 million children of illegal immigrant parents in California, or about 15 percent of the state's K-12 school enrolled population. The estimate is based on a 1994 study by the Urban Institute that concluded there were 307,000 illegal immigrant children enrolled in the state's public schools. Martin also added an estimate of 597,000 U.S.-born children whose parents are illegal immigrants arriving at a total of 1,022,000 children. Multiplying the number of children by the estimated $7,577 the state spends on average per pupil, the study arrived at the $7.7 billion figure. Including the number of U.S.-born children in the study is one of the reasons pro-immigrant groups said the study is biased. "I think FAIR is without doubt an extremist organization that tries to portray itself as a mainstream group," said Christian Ramirez, director of the San Diego office of the American Friends Service Committee, an advocate group for legal and illegal immigrants. The study's author defended the report, saying that the children were born in the United States as a result of their parents' illegal entry into the country. "In no way does the report identify them as different kinds of citizens, because they would not have been born in the U.S. had their parents not come into the country illegally," Martin said. To arrive at the cost of providing health care to illegal immigrants, the federation's study used an earlier 2000 analysis of health expenses paid by border counties that concluded the state spent $908 million on medical care for immigrants. Martin said he adjusted the 2000 figure for increases in the population and inflation on the cost of providing health care and estimated that the state will spend about $1.4 billion in 2004. The report also estimated that the state will spend another $1.4 billion to jail the 48,000 illegal immigrants in state prisons. California is compensated by the federal government to offset the cost of housing this population, but the federal payments were a fraction, about $111 million, of the total cost, Martin said. To figure out the contributions that this immigrant population makes in taxes, the federation's study said it adjusted the Urban Institute's study estimates of $732 million for population increases and concluded that they contribute about $1.7 billion in sales, income and property taxes. A similar study conducted by the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, D.C., and released in August, said that illegal immigrants cost the federal government $10 billion more than they pay in taxes. The federal government pays about $2.2 billion in medical treatment for uninsured immigrants, according to the report. It pays $1.9 billion in food assistance programs, such as food stamps and school lunches, for low-income families. And it pays $1.4 billion in aid to schools that educate illegal immigrant children. Martin said states bear most of the cost of illegal immigration. "State costs are much higher on a per capita basis because of the fact that the largest expenses are medical care and education and those are borne at the local level, not the federal," Martin said. The federation's full report is at: www.fairus.org. Contact staff writer Edward Sifuentes at (760) 740-5426 or esifuentes@nctimes.com. SOURCE: http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2004/12/06/news/top_stories/19_56_5812_5_04.txt ERIN, Obvioulsy you didn't read the article or you missed this small fact that illegals like to forget about to, let me remind you here it is again... The report estimates the total cost at $10.5 billion each year, but that is offset by about $1.7 billion in taxes that illegal immigrants pay. WOW, I gained a" negative" $9BIllion. AND the difference between me and an illegal is guess what? I'M LEGAL!!!! WHY Zapata, because you "say so"? Where are your stats? Just because you "say NO" doesn't make it true. I hope you don't have any money because you would be dangerous seeing you did not provide any stats which indicates your the one without brains! Jose, I've seen it first hand! You speak the truth. Very Good point Craig! Truth! Rownawagner, maybe you should visit this website for a little more enlightenment and tell us what you think, I'd like to know... http://www.vdare.com/rubenstein/050324_nd.htm Iceman, I give to you words of wisdom borrowed from Lucky: Not all that wander are lost, not all that answer know, not all that know understand. Akita-Lo; I have a belief that anyone that has the balls to answer a question and lacks the courage to leave open the lines of communication via e-mail on this forum, is just a plain ignorant coward. All I have to say to you is REMEMBER THE ALAMO! I hope to God this message reaches you somehow someway somewhere!