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US Sues Over Genetic Testing for Insurance Claims
Marty writes "It appears the U.S. government is setting an excellent precident when it comes to genetic testing and insurance claims. According to the Chicago Tribune, The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has sued Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad for "requiring genetic testing of employees who file claims for certain work-related hand injuries" on the basis of civil rights violations. The article states that the tests looked for chromosome 17 deletion, which some studies claim makes a person more susceptible to CTS (more info about the genetic link is available at hnpp.org). Contrast this to recent policies in the UK."
Insurance companies may well need to discriminate on the basis of genetic testing. Whether this discrimination takes the form of higher premiums or outright refusal of coverage doesn't really matter, but the right of the company to make such discrimination should be considered.
Why?
Because the people they are insuring may have access to the same genetic testing information. This information may be direct, through the same sort of genetic testing, or indirect, through family history of ailments or such.
Consider life insurance: If anyone with a terminal illness could go and buy a million dollars in term life insurance, the life insurance companies would go bankrupt. Hence, most life insurance policies require some sort of health review to make sure you don't have some sort of known terminal illness.
It's a matter of having a level playing field. Insurance companies should be able to have as much medical information about you as you do. They need to be able to determine the risk of insuring you as well as you are able to determine the risk yourself.
Something to consider before complaining about evil privacy-invading mega-corporations.
The reality is that 15% of the people are going to be sick 85% of the time while 85% of the people are going to be sick 15% of the time.
Those are the friggin' statistics.
However which people belong to the 85% and which people belong to the 15% change over time.
If the friggin' companies can't hack those numbers, they should get the fuck out of the fucking business. They don't belong there.
The purpose of insurance is to spread the risk and spread the wealth. Running it for profit is a mugs game.
You end up with the argument from the companies that if you need it you can't get it.
This type of testing will prove self-defeating because if you can get insurance, you aren't likely to need it so its a waste of money so don't buy any insurance.
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This is a day late and a dollar short, but better than nothing.
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Does anyone actually have a Java program designed to control air traffic, or for the operation of a nuclear facility?
Wow. Alot of people think this is the right thing to do...go Genetic Screening! Yea for big business!
/. change while I was at Chevy's this afternoon. Well...if discrimination against race is wrong...how can discrimination against genetics be right?
You don't know why this is bad? Because...it's a slippery slope, that's why.
Discrimination against race is wrong...right? Or did the whole demographic of
This is about a company testing people for a gene...do any of the people here cheering this on have any idea what might happen if this practice spreads?
Genetic testing to see if you might be an alcoholic and then denyed a drivers licence if you are. Genetic testing to see if you might have addictions to drugs and then increased police monitoring. Genetic testing to see if you might get cancer and denial of a job or health benifits.
Is it right to deny people of african ancestory jobs in cold weather conditions because of inceased risk of frostbite? No. of course not. Then why is it alright to start to deny people things because of other genetic traits? Today it's a minor insurance issue...tomarrow it will be a far, far greater issue.
Landlords have no incentive to make their units energy-efficient if the tennents pay the utility bills.
Corporations (and individuals) have no direct financial incentive to avoid polluting the environment.
People have no incentive to reduce health care expenditures when they are covered by insurance.
It's that last point that is the problem here. Insurance breaks down the laws of supply and demand, because cost is no longer an issue. Hence, government regulation is necessary to correct the situation, either by regulating the market, or by altering the rules of the market to restore supply and demand.