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New Bill Would Allow Employers To Demand Genetic Testing From Workers (businessinsider.com)
capedgirardeau quotes a report from Business Insider: A little-noticed bill moving through the U.S. Congress would allow companies to require employees to undergo genetic testing or risk paying a penalty of thousands of dollars, and would let employers see that genetic and other health information. Giving employers such power is now prohibited by U.S. law, including the 2008 genetic privacy and nondiscrimination law known as GINA. The new bill gets around that landmark law by stating explicitly that GINA and other protections do not apply when genetic tests are part of a "workplace wellness" program. The bill, HR 1313, was approved by a House committee on Wednesday, with all 22 Republicans supporting it and all 17 Democrats opposed. The 2008 genetic law prohibits a group health plan -- the kind employers have -- from asking, let alone requiring, someone to undergo a genetic test. It also prohibits that specifically for "underwriting purposes," which is where wellness programs come in. "Underwriting purposes" includes basing insurance deductibles, rebates, rewards, or other financial incentives on completing a health risk assessment or health screenings. In addition, any genetic information can be provided to the employer only in a de-identified, aggregated form, rather than in a way that reveals which individual has which genetic profile. There is a big exception, however: As long as employers make providing genetic information "voluntary," they can ask employees for it. Under the House bill, none of the protections for health and genetic information provided by GINA or the disabilities law would apply to workplace wellness programs as long as they complied with the ACA's very limited requirements for the programs. As a result, employers could demand that employees undergo genetic testing and health screenings.
Freedom.
You are welcome on my lawn.
but employers often give you discounts or money for an HSA if you do the program
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
If you decline to participate, they can boost your insurance premiums by 30%-50%.
Workplace wellness programs make some sense - but there's absolutely no need to involve genetic testing. Has Breitbart been telling them you can catch congenital ugliness from your co-workers or something?
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
My mom doesn't need a bill for that. She is a grown woman and what she decides to do in the privacy of her home with one or more willing partners is neither my business, nor the governments.
The emails were a felony only in your imagination. If the Republicans keep pulling shit like this they will become even more irrelevant in reality than you imagine the other party is.
"Remember, there never were pineapple-almond cookies here."
Important note: This bill came from the House of Representatives, not from the White House. So, Breitbart had nothing to do with it. Bills like this are why Trump was the Republican nominee rather than a more traditional Republican politician. Now whether Trump opposes this bill or not remains to be seen.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
The linked article can't be read if an adblocker is active.
The current state of the law:
Employees who refuse to participate in an employer wellness program can be charged up to 50% more for employer-provided health insurance.
If genetic testing is part of the wellness program then employees have to voluntarily authorize the genetic test. If an employee participates in the wellness program but declines included genetic testing then they can't be penalized with the higher insurance premiums.
The new state of the law, if this bill passes:
Employees who refuse genetic testing that is part of a wellness program can be considered non-participants in the wellness program and be charged the higher insurance premiums.
The comment in the summary that the new bill would "...let employers see that genetic and other health information." is the current state of the law as it relates to wellness programs (Work wellness programs put employee privacy at risk). There is nothing in the new bill that suddenly decreases patient/employee privacy.
"Mandatory" wellness programs, themselves, were controversial and lacked privacy protections when the Democrats insisted everyone participate. They're no less controversial today as the Republicans expand those wellness programs with additional components.
So we will soon have Gattaca? https://www.themoviedb.org/mov...
Which obviously would NOT include racial markers given the extreme reactions of our society to anything "racist".
But given the high percentage of Aspies in the field... you're screwed.
Slightly less than it's worth.
That's the point. Employers get to legally discriminate against potential and actual employees who have a genetic disadvantage in order to save money on insurance premiums.
The eye gouging program is entirely voluntary.
Employees can qualify for not having premiums doubled by simply removing an eye. It's not our fault, but our fiduciary responsibility to maximize shareholder value. And you'll still be able to see if you were responsible and maintained two healthy eyes prior to the program. It won't reduce our healthcare costs if you join the program, but it will reduce our payroll costs if you fail to qualify for the discount.
Rest assured that you can't be penalized under current law if the eyeball you submit for testing is defective in any way, but should the legal landscape change we may be forced to re-evaluate the policy.
Have a nice day
Nullius in verba
Keep voting GOP candidates in...
Sooner or later, give them enugh rope and they'll kill off their voters.
I can't wait to see republicans who lose their job due to "private" genetic testing who then vote republican's because they don't have jobs.
And the democrats are not nearly as bad. They are not as good as they could be but they are not even in the same league as the Republicans when it comes to being willing to let people just flat out suffer and die.
For god's sake, make abortion illegal so the republican golem will dissolve and we can stop destroying the country over the issue.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
I was wondering about this so I googled it. Dems opposed mandatory wellness back in 2013. tranquilidad is full of it. Got modded up to +5 even.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
So they're a felony for Pence then, is what you're saying.
And it's a much worse felony, presumeably, that President Trump communicates about governance related issues using his unsecured Android phone.
Hypocrisy of the highest order.
The whole email affair was a mountain made out of a mole hill to scam gullible people into voting for someone who wants f*cking corporations to have the right to demand genetic testing of employees if it will notch up their profit one notch.
F*ck people are stupid. Is there another planet with intelligent life?
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
The biggest problem with the US health insurance is the way it's tied to employment: it means that people end up in weird employment-based risk pools, that they lose health care when they lose their jobs, and that people don't get the same kind of tax breaks when insured on their own.
There are plenty of the proverbially "advanced nations" that have private health care instead of "single payer"; however, they usually have private health plans that aren't tied to employers. That's what Congress should fix, first by giving individuals the same kind of tax breaks as employers for health plans, and then by gradually phasing out employer-based health plans altogether.
8 years ago, the Democrats held the Presidency, both Houses and 57% of governorships. Yet here we are.
If you're looking for "lying, partisan piles of shit", give Ted Cruz & Paul Ryan (among others) a call and ask them what Cheeto-flavored jizz tasted like
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
Fine, but at least my chosen party didn't just VOTE TO LET YOUR EMPLOYER FORCE YOU TO TAKE A GENETIC TEST SO YOU CAN BE DISCRIMINATED BASED ON THE GENES THAT MAKE YOU YOU.
I mean, fucking Christ man.
And yes, slashdot. I know it's like yelling. That's because I'm yelling here. It'd be nice if we weren't still stuck with the same terrible filters Rob wrote two decades ago, but I guess we're not.
Ahh, blaming an enemy for his opponent's practices. If only the French were strong enough to defeat the Nazis, then we'd never have had world war II, so therefore France should pay for all of Germany's reparations. And then opposing a nutbag of conspiracy theories makes one partisan, which somehow ruins a republic, so you need to be partisan for my side so we're not partisan and lacking in integrity and somehow all of the problems in today's society will fix themselves without my dedicating an iota of thought.I love the acrobatic logic, truly.
Now, hmm. A moron of a president who doesn't know the first thing about politics, a chamber with a brand of conservatives dedicated to opposing the moderates in their own party, widespread differences in view with no interest in attempting any sort of reconciliation, occupying a number of incredibly unpopular views while making promises they know they can't keep, having lost the culture war 20 years ago and losing more each day, having virtually no sway with all of the increasing voter demographics, and being hopelessly out of touch with their own voters on topics such as healthcare, and uh, yeah. I am hugely afraid of all the stupid and damaging legislation that could be passed in the next 4 years. I am not at all worried they'll stay in power after that at the rate they're going, and if they keep shooting themselves in the foot by making policies that hurt their own voters the most, that might not even take four years.
The bigger question I have for you is, what about them makes you want to support them?
"Set a man a fire, he'll be warm for the rest of the night. Set a man afire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life."
This "we own you" crap - wasn't there a civil war over managers with that sort of attitude?
"Under House rules, the Speaker schedules floor votes on pending legislation. The Hastert Rule says that the Speaker will not schedule a floor vote on any bill that does not have majority support within his or her party — EVEN IF THE MAJORITY OF THE MEMBERS OF THE HOUSE would vote to pass it"
So the speaker subverts the majority of the votes using his position to prevent votes on bills not supported by his party.
And now we have a President that Americans didn't vote for, they voted by clear majority for the other one.
Robert Mercer you suck as human being.
IMHO "employer-provided health care" should be a voucher up to a certain amount that the employer gives you to spend on any health insurance of your choice. That way it remains a purely financial transaction between you and the employer, while all personal health information remains between you and your insurer. Then there's no excuse for any health information being leaked to your employer. No entrapment that comes about when your employer is the source of your health insurance. If you lose or change your job, you can keep the health insurance - paid out of pocket or with vouchers from your new employer.
I was manager of a small business when we instituted employer-provided health care. The operating premise is that by combining your employees into an insurance pool, it stabilizes both the premiums paid into the pool (one person could quit their job, but it's highly unlikely all your employees will quit their jobs at the same time), as well as the payouts due to employees getting sick (one person can get sick, but it's highly unlikely all your employees will get sick at the same time). But a pool is a pool. Unless your employees are uncharacteristically healthy or unhealthy, there's no statistical difference between a pool of employees, and a pool of random people who bought their own health insurance (out of pocket or using vouchers from their employer).
8 years ago, the Democrats held the Presidency, both Houses and 57% of governorships. Yet here we are.
This is part of the normal political pendulum. People become disillusioned with whatever party is in power because problems aren't being solved. So they vote the other guys in, and then slowly realize that the other party doesn't have any solutions either.
The ACA was a tax based on the belief that everybody has a right to life. Thanks to your higher premiums, I was able to get free coverage after so many years without insurance. Thank you for involuntarily saving my life. Sorry you had to drive a slightly worse car because of it.
This space intentionally left blank
Thank you for voting Democrat in 2008 and 2012 - you helped more than double my insurance costs
You can blame lobbyists and the Republican filibuster on earlier attempts for single payer. Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) was a compromise reached through negotiation with insurance lobbyists. It is modeled on the earlier Massachusetts Accountable Health Care act (Romneycare), and mainly adds requirements for insurance providers to cover preventative care and has provisions to expand Medicare. But the rest of it remain the same, it's an expansion of a system that Massachusetts already has operated successfully.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Irrelevant ?
3/4 of the state governments
The House
The Senate with possible super majority in the Senate by 2018
and the presidency
Somehow I don't think that word means what you think it does. BTW looking at those numbers you might want to acquaint yourself with Article V of the constitution so you don't look stupid when reality starts smacking you upside the head.
So, you response to someone who is telling the truth is to wish they were dead so you don't have to grapple with the fact your preferred politician is a corrupt liar? Which part was the lie ... the part where the entire Clinton apparatus stonewalled and foot-dragged on FOIA requests for years? The part where she and her husband raked in millions of dollars selling influence while she was in office? I know, it's painful if you were rooting for her, and you know that she was looking you in the eye and lying - over and over and over again - so you're trying to wish it away. But why the venom aimed at the people who simply point that out? What are you, 12?
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
So they're a felony for Pence then, is what you're saying.
No. Because the two situations aren't even remotely comparable. Which you know.
President Trump communicates about governance related issues using his unsecured Android phone.
Citation based on something other than a whiny liberal fake news blog, please.
The whole email affair was a mountain made out of a mole hill
No, it was an example of one of the most senior people in the federal government deliberately conducting official business on a poorly secured internet-connected mail server she kept in her house. And then failing to turn over all of that data on the day she left office, as required by law. And deleting thousands of federal records while under subpoena, and then repeatedly lying about the entire process for months on end, as pointed out by the FBI director in specific terms. Any other federal employee would lose their job. Nobody conducting themselves in that way with classified material could EVER get or keep a security clearance. Nobody doing those things could secure a federal job in the first place, let alone in connection to more handling of sensitive information.
someone who wants f*cking corporations to have the right to demand genetic testing of employees
Really. Who would that be? Are you referring to people in the legislature, where that is being talked about but hasn't even faced reconciliation or voting of any kind? Or are you referring to the president, who has said exactly zero on the matter at all?
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
The purpose of this bill is to bypass the ACA's current protection mechanism against discrimination due to preexisting conditions. Currently, we know very little about what sections of our DNA actually does (with a few exceptions) and even less about how sections are activated. How we "know" what risk factors you have via DNA is strictly a statistical analysis and based on observation rather than investigations into a particular gene's function. So really, this just gives insurance companies a blank check to claim any bullshit they want to change people with preexisting conditions. The irony here is that your DNA is the very first condition for coming into existence!
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
,https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Clinton_sexual_misconduct_allegations, none were really proved. So while I find Clinton abhorrent, you can only say about what is really proved : the sexual harassment lawsuit and the admitted sex with the 2 women. As such the GP is correct.
Furthermore while there was allegation
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Not everybody is as rational as you. If you bought the propaganda hook, line and sinker then you're emotionally invested and the current government can do nothing wrong.
thegodmovie.com - watch it
Nordic people are less likely to have lactose intolerance, so the test can consist simply of giving the employee a glass of full fat milk and monitoring bathroom breaks. No intrusive measures or expensive lab facilities required.
"Wait. Something's happening. It's opening up! My God, it's full of apricots!"
If you decline to participate, they can boost your insurance premiums by 30%-50%.
With all the money spent playing political and legal games over legislation regarding insurance premium regulations, we probably could have funded a socialized healthcare system by now for many years.
We'll make great pets
Even if it got as far as passage, it would never survive in courts. First of all, it allows discrimination in compensation based on race. The court arguments will pretty much stop at that. But it also allows discrimination based on yet-to-be-proven-to-be-genetically-caused disabilities. That's going to be enough to get it laughed out of the courts rather than just thrown out.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
Maybe, but 99% of the time "small government" is code for "no regulators to watch me when my company breaks the law".
"employers could demand that employees undergo genetic testing and health screenings"
:) ) thinking at companies that they are doing their employees some big favor by using their talents, capabilities and time. It's not so. It's an agreement, that until we think our treatment and our compensation is worth lending our resources. Should it become not so, then bummer, this is still a fairly big world with lots of employers in it.
And I could demand that the employer go fsck themselves sideways. There's this still lingering and weird and unhealthy (speaking of
Maybe this sounds a bit idealistic, but acting like a powerless workforce victim will actually get you closer to becoming one.
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
Way back in the 1980s when companies complained of insurance rates for their workers the sales agents would casually mention that if a few of the older workers were laid off the insurance rates would go way down. Companies could create excuses for laying off or firing older workers and frequently did so. You can bet that with genetic testing any individuals will be laid off or prevented from advancement so that they are frustrated and quit their jobs. Companies need to be prohibited from gaining any knowledge of a worker's DNA.
That requires an assumption that they had ideals regarding decency which required compromise. More likely, their ideals of decency fit right in with taking healthcare away from sick people, raising the prices at big-box stores, bombing / invading anyone handy, telling women what they may and may not do with their own bodies, controlling who uses what bathroom because (cough) "decency", interfering with personal liberties, pushing their particular brand of superstition on everyone else... and so forth.
"Ideal" is not a synonym for "good." It just means circumstances that are optimally congruent with the views of the idealist. That can be very bad indeed.
For example:
o "Ideally, we'd kill all the Muslims"
o "Ideally, women would be at home, either barefoot and pregnant, or virgin"
o "Ideally everyone would believe in the bible"
o "Ideally, there would be prayer in schools"
...those are ideals. Those are ideals that led people to vote for Trump and a large number of people in congress. The people that hold those ideals won't need to compromise them at all in order to maintain their current outlook.
TL;DR: One person's ideals of decency are not any kind of guarantee that the next person's will be even remotely similar.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Why do you say SJWs aren't a thing?
Because they're not. It's become a catch-phrase dogwhistle used to shout down arguments. Like: You said Y which makes you an SJW. You're an SJW, and SJWs do X therefore you believe X. And various other things. It's used as nothing else other than a random grab-bag mishmash of "shit I hate on the internet".
AmiMojo's sig qouting an AC has it nailed: someone I don't like and by the way I'm a fuckwit.
Please supply another definition if you disagree, but I've yet to see a remotely meaningful definition that fits the rather broad and perverse set of things SJWs have been accused of doing.
No one but him (a white guy) was offended but the major UK retailer caved just in case a shitstorm ensued.
Companies care desperately about PR. Welcome to the vaguely modern world.
No one but him
If you want to cherry pick the craziest crazy you can find, go ahead, I'm sure I can find equally crazy people (or more so). That doesn't really prove anything.
was offended
Speculation. As far as you know, no one but him complained, but you're speculating on people's internal mental state. Given that there wasn't a huge outcry, it's reasonable to assume that not _many_ people were offended. I've no idea how many people even saw it. I'm a regular Metro reader and I hadn't seen that article until you posted the link.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
no, hes using hte standard response for when someone posts a bunch of made up bullshit as if it were facts.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
all youve done is describe yourself.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
Why do you say SJWs aren't a thing?
Because they're not. It's become a catch-phrase dogwhistle used to shout down arguments. Like: You said Y which makes you an SJW. You're an SJW, and SJWs do X therefore you believe X. And various other things. It's used as nothing else other than a random grab-bag mishmash of "shit I hate on the internet".
I believe the term the right has started using is "virtue signaling". In that, using the term "SJW" they are "virtue signaling" to other right-wing-nuts that they are also a right-wing-nut. It's like a mating call.
HIPAA privacy rules block the transfer of medical info to a company that isn't HIPAA compliant. I expect most companies are not compliant. The company doing the testing would therefore be legally blocked from handing over the test results or face large fines.
They got disillusioned because one party decided that they were going to put their party ahead of all interests and basically said no to everything like a bunch of petulant children. They wanted and hoping everything would burn so that they can get back into power. It was never about the American people. Right now, fringe Republican party politicians think all liberals are the enemies... or I should amend that all people who don't think like them. We are living in dangerous times and it doesnt matter where you are in the political spectrum. You simply have to think different to be considered liberal.
Meanwhile Trump distracts the press with nonsense and everyone falls for that distraction.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
If your house is on fire, you get a bucket. You don't give the Joker an unlimited supply of napalm, some matches, and point him at your front door.
I get that they were so bewildered by right wing agitprop and the sabotage that Comey engaged in just before the vote that they ended up feeling that way. I also get that this was both a highly inaccurate representation of what was really going on, and that now, post-error, confirmation bias drives people to claim they were justified when it is patently obvious that they were not. Rational behavior is not generally the rule of the day when someone has committed a huge screwup, a fact Trump voters now must eventually face.
I have often discussed Clinton's shortcomings, which are many. As are those of the system she operates within in the usual manner of a bought-and-paid for politician. But compared to Trump who is both an idiot and a threat to the country's ultimate stability, she's a genius and a patriot. Voting for Trump "because Clinton" inevitably means you didn't understand one or the other of the two candidates, or possibly both. Some of that is because of crazytarded activity on the part of Drudge, Breitbart, Fox News and so forth. But some of it is because people were too lazy to do their own fact checking. And some, of course, because the Gaussian goes quite a distance to the left before "you can't vote" shows up as a differentiator.
Barring impeachment, which really isn't all that likely, we're in for a minimum of two years of continuing lies, idiotic behavior, and structural damage to the system that will reach into people lives and do very serious harm -- as it has already been doing.
Likely it'll get fixed, inasmuch as (a) Trump lost the actual vote, only gaining office because of the duty-abrogating machinations of the electoral college, which provides us with the incontrovertible fact that the majority of people were against him becoming president; and (b) at this point, no one is guessing if Trump is as big an idiot in real life office as the idiot he was playing on television. Now there is no doubt. So odds are excellent that there's going to be quite a backlash come 2018.
But it's still going to be a rough couple of years.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
GP is right, the Democrats are responsible for Trump being in the White House. The short of it is that the party's chosen (chosen by the party officials than the voters, to be specific) candidate spent over a billion dollars on a campaign running against a candidate looked down on as a bad joke, and still managed to blow it. Even worse, according to the Podesta e-mails this was the candidate they wanted to run against.
A slightly longer answer is that the Clinton campaign outspent Trump 2:1 in a determined effort to crown a DINO with two FBI criminal investigations underway while she was running for president when they had a candidate that dominated the Independent vote with a much cleaner record, much better intentions, and explosive popularity. She courted the donors and ignored the voters. She made no efforts to smooth things over with the younger, progressive wing of the party and went on to call the Republicans "a basket of deplorables"-- who exactly did she expect to vote for her? She ran the least substantive campaign in a very long time only able to say "Donald Trump must be defeated" while offering as little as she could get away with offering, and recent studiesnow say as much. One convenient excuse is to blame the voters for not getting out to vote, but getting people to vote for their candidate was their responsibility; what was the point of spending that 1.2 billion? Another convenient excuse is that Hillary won the popular vote, but only sixteen years ago it was demonstrated that the popular vote alone was no guarantee.
I'll go further than the GP: The Democrats are going to be responsible for the Republicans winning again in 2020. They do a lot of bleating about Russia, third parties sabotaging them, or Trump being pure evil, and they aren't saying anything about policies that would energize and motivate their base. The election of the new DNC chair was a slap in the face to their constituents, and they're quite aware of it.
Uh huh... right.. and guess which party is the one who created this bill? Whatever nonsense your spouting, so far as far as actions go, only one party has been doing that. So please piss off with your both sides bullshit.
Anyone who uses the "Everyone is bad, and they al agree" excuse is promoting that they are perfectly accepting of the bad behavior.
It takes a secial kind of stupid to say that a bill introduced by one party, supported unanimously and opposed by every member of the other party means tat both parties are in agreement.
Then again, America's mistaken idea that the thoughts of the stupid are equal to the thoughts of the intelligent are exactly why we have fucked ourselves severely. AC is the epitome of the stupid side.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
It's nice that you were here to flesh it out.