Where has Airline Employees Sympathy And Empathy Gone?

Disabled Woman Kicked Out Of Airline Lounge Because Of Service Dog

May 11, 2017 11:27 PM

Filed Under: JFK Airport, Micaela Bensko, Service Dog, Virgina Atlantic Lounge

SANTA CLARITA (CBSLA.com) — A Santa Clarita woman in a wheelchair said she was kicked out of an airline lounge because of her service dog.

Micaela Bensko was in tears, crumpled in pain when she said she was denied access to the Virgin Atlantic lounge at JFK International Airport in New York because she had a service dog.

In 2011, Bensko’s spine was severely injured in an accident, leaving her in a wheelchair. Service dog, Blue Bell, helps pull her.

She cannot sit for more than 30 minutes, That is why she said she paid for the Virgin Atlantic lounge so she could lie down before her flight.

But a lounge employee said no and Bensko caught it on video, which showed the employee saying: “With Virgin Atlantic policy with any service animal, you have to have some sort of paperwork.”

But according to the Americans with Disabilities Act, no documentation is needed, and disabled people with service dogs can go anywhere the public is allowed to go.

Bensko said the lounge was practically empty at the time but was still refused entry.

“I’m in too much pain. I’m sorry I can’t wait any longer. You guys are unbelievable,” Bensko said in the mobile phone video she recorded.

The employee called a manager. But Bensko said after 20 minutes, she had no choice but to lie down on the concrete floor at her terminal.

“This was death by a thousand cuts. I couldn’t take it anymore,” she told CBS2’s Andrea Fujii.

The mother of four said she did not want compensation from the airline; she just wanted to be a spokesperson for all who are disabled.

“Bring humanity back to traveling. That’s what I’m interested in,” Bensko said.

“As soon as we were made aware of this incident, we sent an urgent reminder to our Clubhouse teams to clarify the policy around support dogs, and will be investigating further to improve the way the situation was handled. It is never our intention to disappoint our customers, and we’re keen to speak directly with the customer to understand what improvements we can make to ensure this doesn’t happen again, and to offer our heartfelt apologies,” according to a statement released by Virgin Atlantic.

Before Long Employers Will Require You To Prove You Are Healthy Before Being Hired. Are DNA Checks Next?

When voluntary is no longer voluntary

Posted on February 4, 2016 by Bob Livingston

Employers can now force employees to take work-sponsored health assessments and biometric screenings against their will, a federal judge in Madison, Wisconsin has ruled.

The ruling in the case of Dale Arnold, an employee for plastics maker Flambeau, overturned a ruling by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission which had previously determined Flambeau’s wellness program did not comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act. It’s just the latest in a series of losses in federal court by employees who can now be penalized under the color of law for desiring to keep their privacy and individual sovereignty and for what they choose to do on their own time.

Language in the ADA limits companies from requiring medical exams or personal health information from workers. But in a fascist and oligarchic system where government controls the insurance and medical cartels and seeks to control all aspect of the people’s lives, the “law” is of little consequence when the government sees an opportunity to grasp more power.

Arnold took his case to the EEOC after Flambeau revoked his health insurance coverage when he refused to participated in the company’s “voluntary” work-sponsored health assessment and biometric screen. Flambeau uses its “voluntary” employee wellness program to cut insurance costs by encouraging healthy employee habits. To participate, employees submitted to on-site tests of blood pressure, body mass and cholesterol. That information was then stored in a database used by the insurance company and employer.

Companies are devising wellness programs in a self-defense move designed at curbing rising health insurance costs. Obamacare requires an extensive database of health information to be collected to be used to determine what treatments and drugs it will approve and the payment schedule it will use. Obamacare and other federal and state regulations on health coverage have driven insurance premiums and deductibles through the roof.

And with Obamacare regulations requiring everyone to carry some type of insurance, employees who are dropped from their employer-based coverage are forced into hyper-expensive COBRA plans or onto expensive, inadequate and/or limited choice Obamacare plans.

That government control of health insurance is destroying privacy rights and individual liberty is no surprise to many of us. In fact, I warned this was coming three years ago in “CVS demonstrates your future under Obamacare.” I wrote:

Now, legal drug pusher CVS Caremark pharmacy is telling its employees they must report specific personal health information or pay an extra $600 per year for their health insurance coverage.

Among the measures employees are required to report are their weight, body fat, cholesterol, blood pressure and blood sugar levels. Employees must also be tobacco-free or enroll in an addiction program.

“These changes aren’t just about costs, they’re about us, each of us taking personal accountability for our own health,” said Lisa Bissacia, CVS senior vice president and chief human resources officer, in a recorded video released by the company.

The irony that a company that peddles to an unsuspecting public pharmaceuticals with a list of side effects as long as your arm and responsible for millions of adverse reaction events and 106,000 deaths annually would actually be concerned about their employees’ health is no doubt lost on Bissacia. On top of that, such a policy is an egregious violation of the employees’ rights.

Employment lawyers predicted that CVS’s wellness program would not stand legal scrutiny. But at the time I wrote:

With government running healthcare, expect programs like this to expand and the information to be used to force behavior modifications for everyone forced to buy into Obamacare.

Now we are there. Next step is a corporate/government mandate to “treat” all diseases and conditions found through the “voluntary” wellness screening with drugs and surgeries under penalties of loss of insurance, loss of work, fines and/or imprisonment. Never mind that orthodox medicine in the U.S. kills more than 200,000 people each year.

Health insurance is and always has been a scam anyway, and Big Insurance and government interference in the medical market combined to drive the prices of health insurance and health services up to stratospheric levels.

None of this would be a problem without government meddling. People should be buying medical services they need straight from doctors and hospitals at market prices, not through a third party insurer or — especially — through government.

If health insurance is necessary, it should be sold in a free market, across state lines, without onerous government coverage mandates, and insurers should be free to tailor plans for individuals and families.

For more examples of our current medical police state, see:

The medical police state 

An update on Maryanne Godboldo and medical tyranny

Hospitals are the new prisons

California medical tyranny

Michigan DHS insists on poisoning a child

Poison your child or go to jail… in the public interest

Five anal probes, one colonoscopy and no drugs later, New Mexico man sues local police force

More court-approved torture coming to Georgia?

The vampire state draws blood

Insanity Runs Rampant in Washington

Do you want to go out to eat and have a horse standing next to you? Or is it safe for someone in a wheelchair to ride a roller coaster? How exciting will your next 18 holes of mini golf be if it must meet Americans with Disability Act guidelines? These are all new requirements that a number of recreational activity providers must meet under the new rules.  Make any sense to you, it sure does not to us. 

What are your comments?

Conservative Tom

New Disability Regs Limit Slope of Mini Golf Holes, Require Businesses to Admit Mini Horses as Guide Animals

By Elizabeth Harrington

June 26, 2012

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Mona Ramouni, who is blind, rides a bus to work with her guide horse in Lincoln Park, Mich. Growing up in Detroit, Ramouni could never get a dog because her devout Muslim family considered dogs unclean. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio/File)

(CNSNews.com) – Although the Justice Department has extended the deadline for America’s hotels to comply with regulations regarding handicap access to swimming pools, new Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) guidelines are already being applied at miniature golf courses, driving ranges, amusement parks, shooting ranges and saunas.

Among the provisions in the "Revised ADA Standards for Accessible Design," which went into effect on March 15, is one requiring businesses to allow miniature horses on their premises as guide animals for the disabled. Another limits the height of slopes on miniature golf holes.

“The new standards, for the first time, include requirements for judicial facilities, detention and correctional facilities, and recreational facilities,” Assistant Attorney General Thomas E. Perez said during a conference in Baltimore on June 7.

“We expect the implementation of these accessibility standards to open up doors for full participation in both the responsibilities, such as jury duty, and the benefits, such as playing at city parks, of civic life for people with disabilities,” he said.

The 2010 ADA standards for Accessible Design require that at least 50 percent of golf holes on miniature golf courses be “accessible” – with a ground space that is “48 inches minimum by 60 inches minimum with slopes not steeper than 1:48 at the start of play.”

Click to enlarge

Other regulations include:

Saunas – provision of accessible turning space and an accessible bench.

Shooting facilities – provision of accessible turning space “for each different type of firing position.”

Golf courses – “an accessible route to connect all accessible elements within the boundary.” An accessible route must also “connect golf car rental areas, bag drop areas, teeing grounds, putting greens, and weather shelters.”

Gyms – at least one of each type of exercise machine must be positioned for use by a person in a wheelchair.

Amusement parks – any new or altered ride must provide at least one seat for a person in a wheelchair.

A section of the guidelines regulating commercial facilities states that, “a public accommodation shall make reasonable modifications in policies, practices, or procedures to permit the use of a miniature horse by an individual with a disability if the miniature horse has been individually trained to do work or perform tasks for the benefit of the individual with a disability.”

A public accommodation is defined as “a private entity that owns, leases (or leases to), or operates a place of public accommodation.”

“Miniature horses were suggested by some commenters as viable alternatives to dogs for individuals with allergies, or for those whose religious beliefs preclude the use of dogs,” the rules state.  Also mentioned as a reason to include the animals is the longer life span of miniature horses – providing approximately 25 years of service as opposed to seven years for dogs.

“Some individuals with disabilities have traveled by train and have flown commercially with their miniature horses,” the Justice Department notes.

“Similar to dogs, miniature horses can be trained through behavioral reinforcement to be ‘housebroken,’” it adds.

However, “Ponies and full-size horses are not covered.”

A business owner can deny admission to a miniature horse that is not housebroken, whose handler does not have sufficient control of the animal, or if the horse’s presence compromises “legitimate safety requirements.”

The miniature horse addition has come under the scrutiny of at least one member of Congress, Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), who offered an amendment that passed the House, banning funding to implement the provision. Chaffetz penned an editorial last month in opposition to the rule entitled, “Horses in the Dining Room?”

Last month the Justice Department extended the deadline for the rule requiring permanent wheelchair access to recreational pools. Citing “significant concerns and misunderstandings among a substantial number of pool owners and operators,” the department issued a notice in the Federal Register extending compliance from March 15 to May 21 this year. The date has now been pushed back further, to January 31, 2013.

The regulation requires large pools – those with over 300 linear feet of pool wall – to have two accessible means of entry, and smaller pools to have one.

For existing pools, owners making structural alterations are obliged to remove architectural barriers “to the extent such compliance is readily achievable.”

“As I consider the department’s accomplishments to date, and our plans for the future, I continue to take my inspiration from people with disabilities and their families,” Perez said in Baltimore.

“These individuals express the harm of segregation and the value of integration more eloquently than any lawyer’s brief ever could.  They are the heroes of this civil rights movement.”

A person with a disability is defined by the ADA as, “a person who has a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities, a person who has a history or record of such an impairment, or a person who is perceived by others as having such an impairment.”