Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

US Sues Over Genetic Testing for Insurance Claims

Posted by michael on from the first-blood dept.

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."

3 of 162 comments (clear)

  1. Insurance bias necessary by crow · · Score: 5

    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.

  2. Action could be based on Sci Am Editorial by LauraLolly · · Score: 5
    Last month, Scientific American ran an editorial piece on genetic testing in the workplace. It was scathing. There were reactions to it in the CDC and the Departments of Labor and Justice. (Or so I heard from friends who work there.)

    This is a day late and a dollar short, but better than nothing.

  3. Free markets don't always work by crow · · Score: 5
    Unfortunately, lassez faire breaks down when the person making the purchasing decision is not directly spending their own money. I can think of several good examples:



    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.