GATTACA
Force employees to take DNA tests for bosses? We've got a new law to make that happen, beam House Republicans
Amid the attention on the new US administration's healthcare plan, a law has been proposed that would force employees to hand over their genetic information if they want company health insurance. House bill HR 1313, dubbed the Preserving Employee Wellness Programs Act, was introduced by Representative Virginia Foxx (R-NC) and …
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Tuesday 14th March 2017 12:30 GMT Trigonoceps occipitalis
Re: @GATTACA
6:1 against me. I didn't make myself clear and if I offended anyone I apologise. Collection of DNA by companies is only OK if they are under a remit to help those unfortunate to be discovered harbouring a genetic disease, or disposition to disease, beyond that given to the fortunate majority. With power comes responsibility.
Any and all excuses will be proffered as to why a company should only take the benefit, I offered only one. If I was not able to impart my views that is a fault in my use of English.
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Friday 17th March 2017 17:19 GMT anonymous boring coward
Re: @GATTACA
"Collection of DNA by companies is only OK if they are under a remit to help those unfortunate to be discovered harbouring a genetic disease, or disposition to disease, beyond that given to the fortunate majority."
Why on earth should a company be doing this?
They may pay for it as a benefit, but they shouldn't ever get access to the data.
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Sunday 12th March 2017 00:01 GMT Matt Bryant
Re: Unicornpiss Re: @GATTACA
".....And if employers are prohibited against discriminating based on the results (hopefully), then why collect it at all?" Ah, yet again it seems the average El Reg poster falls for the emotional, "Big Bad Business" response, probably due to a failure to understand how risk assessment and the cost of covering risk impacts businesses. In the US, when a company takes on an employee and gives them healthcare insurance, they buy that insurance from another company. The cost of that insurance purchase is based on several factors, the most important being the relative risk of the insured party. How much medical info they have on the insured party allows them to make an accurate risk assessment, otherwise they have to assume a worst case and the insurance cost is higher. The higher the overall insurance cost for all employees, the less people the company can afford to hire.
Think of it as if you owned a nice, new, reliable, safe and secure family car, but when you went to insure it the car insurance company said it had to be insured as if it were a classic Ferrari because the law said they were not allowed to ask you about your car, and there is a statistical likelihood that it could be a classic Ferrari. Sure, it's great news if you do own a Ferrari as the rest of us are subsidising you, but not so great for the vast majority of us. Suddenly, the cost of car insurance becomes a dominant factor it how many cars you can afford to buy, or whether you can even afford to buy one at all.
And before the SJWs start the predictable whining about "discrimination against disabled people", history shows companies have been willing to take on that added risk and cost when those disabled people have the required skills. But having to ensure all employees as if they might have the same genetic predisposition to certain diseases as a minority of employees is actually discrimination against the majority. The SJWs can downvote as they please, it probably satisfies their desire for emotion over reason, but it doesn't change the facts.
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Monday 13th March 2017 14:44 GMT strum
unemployable because he has a genetic defect
Thing is - most 'genetic defects' are only _potential_ diseases. Someone with a genetic 'defect' may live out a full & healthy life. It usually requires some other epi-genetic arrangement (or environmental circumstance) to turn that genetic code into an illness.
Not only is this measure immeasurably evil, it's also futile.
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Sunday 12th March 2017 21:15 GMT JimC
Re: Unicornpiss @GATTACA @Matt Bryant
The trouble is, as you well know, insurance works by distributing risk. The end result is the majority of people who turned out to be lucky subsidise the minority of people who turned out to be unlucky. If you restrict insurance cover only to those who are going to turn out to be lucky then the lucky folk pay out a little bit less but the unlucky don't get insurance at all. That might be considered fairer by the lucky ones, but given sufficient granularity it stops being insurance at all.
All insurance is about the rest of us subsidising the ones who need the payouts, that's the whole point of the exercise.
If all cars had to be insured at the same rate then the cost would not, as you very well know, be the same as that of a classic Ferrari driven by a 19 year old. It would be the cost of the average of all the policies, and probably, especially if the insurance companies had plenty of power to refuse cover to 19 years olds in classic Ferraris, not that far off the average of all premiums paid now.
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Monday 13th March 2017 02:07 GMT P. Lee
Re: Bryant @GATTACA
There is what I would consider a fatal flaw in your argument: there is a difference in between what you are and what you do. They are asking for genetic information - that's not something you can change. Think of it like having, oh maybe black skin.
Now if they were asking if you smoke or run 5 miles every day or eat at McDonald's, that would be ok - that's behaviour that can be changed.
Let's take the information request to the extreme. If we had perfect information about health problems and behaviour, we wouldn't have insurance. Everyone would just be paying for themselves because we would have precise premiums which match circumstances.
In this case, we are creating a class of people who are uninsurable because no-one will want to take on the risk. So they get no healthcare. The genetic analysis may even be wrong but there's no harm to the companies in jacking up the prices or excluding them completely. Who think big data produces accurate relevant results for every data point?
The family car vs Ferrari argument doesn't hold water with health insurance unless you think that some humans are expendable and others should be preserved at great cost.
That's why the government should be providing healthcare. The market doesn't do it well. It may turn a profit, but universal service provision is not something markets do well.
... and we haven't even touched on whether its a good idea to have a large database identifying all the Semites. Was one of your grandparents from a Muslim country? Do we have some "extreme vetting" and a "travel plan" for you!
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Monday 13th March 2017 04:34 GMT Oengus
Re: Unicornpiss @GATTACA
Think of it as if you owned a nice, new, reliable, safe and secure family car, but when you went to insure it the car insurance company said it had to be insured as if it were a classic Ferrari because the law said they were not allowed to ask you about your car
When I insure the family car I insure it for ~$30,000-$50,000. When I insure the classic Ferrari I insure it for $300,000-$500,000. Based on classic car insurance I have it is actually cheaper per dollar insured to insure the classic car than the family car. This is because statistically the chance of having to pay out on the classic car insurance is lower than the family car.
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Monday 13th March 2017 05:50 GMT big_D
Re: Unicornpiss @GATTACA
@Oengus exactly. The family car will probably drive 20 - 30,000 miles a year, heck, when I was working in the UK, I was doing around 60,000 a year, as I was always working on client sites a long way from home.
The insurance on my classic car, which did less than 2,000 miles a year (which is a lot for many classic cars!) was a pitance, compared to what I was paying for my "normal" car (VW Passat).
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Monday 13th March 2017 11:58 GMT john fisher 1
Re: Unicornpiss @GATTACA
Sadly, the logic is true. In similar fashion, if I were running a health insurance company in US why in hell would I want to insure a patient with a preexisting condition knowing he or she could cost me a bundle? This logic ignores the elephant in the room: the FOR PROFIT healthcare system. In my opinion, shameful in this day and age.
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Friday 17th March 2017 17:15 GMT anonymous boring coward
Re: Unicornpiss @GATTACA
In the US doctors are ridiculously overpayed (what are they, som kind of Gods?). And they need extremely expensive liability insurances as well. (Despite being semigods.)
So goddam inefficient that it's a travesty.
But if you can afford the heallthcare, it's supposedly quite good.
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Monday 13th March 2017 13:09 GMT FuzzyTheBear
Re: Unicornpiss @GATTACA
US health system is the worst in the dang universe.No money you die.( i saw it while living in the USA ) Look at civilised countries , we ALL offer healthcare to everyone .There's no company that needs to provide anything , teeth work in some places but we don't need to disclose anything to anyone.
Want to repel a headache having to do all this administrative bullshit in company ? .. National Universal Health Care Works for countless countries and billion + individuals.
At leasy we don't let people die because of lack of coverage. Which you do everyday by the hundreds.
We dont take the uninsured mental patients in an ambulance dropping them at a park to get rid of them.
One thing Americans must start to understand is compassion and that each of them have a responsibility to another. That last one , they will never understand.
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Monday 13th March 2017 13:31 GMT Stevie
Re: Missing the point 4 matt bryant
Well, if we are going to lecture about missing the point, none of the countries that deliver better health care for less money than we do in the USA requires genetic data to get there.
Just not treating the wants of the insurance industry above the needs of the people seems to work well.
But if you are bound and determined to have as many middle men between the patient and doctor as possible, I suppose this plan makes sense.
Oh wait ... no it doesn't. It would appear to be a massive breach of the unreasonable search and seizure statutes that go all the way back to the Constitution.
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Monday 13th March 2017 13:48 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Unicornpiss @GATTACA
"Suddenly, the cost of car insurance becomes a dominant factor it how many cars you can afford to buy, or whether you can even afford to buy one at all."
i think you'll find noone's insurance costs will be reduced by way of removing the higher risk individuals form the group insurance policy.
what will happen is the insurance company will make more money. you will still be paying the same for your premium. those with a genetic disorder will be paying more.
what you're literally arguing in favour for is the insurance company to take on less risk. you as an individual, stand to gain nothing. unless you own shares in the insurance industry, you're nothing more than a convenient fool.
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Saturday 11th March 2017 14:33 GMT TitterYeNot
Yes, GATTACA, rumoured to be named after the genetic sequence: Guanine-Adenine-Thymine-Thymine-Adenine-Cytosine-Adenine
Back in 2003 I listened in awe as it was announced that the 'Human Genome Project', an international collaboration of genetics research teams, had achieved its 15 year goal of sequencing the active parts of the whole human genome with 99.99% accuracy for the first time.
Imagine the possibilities I thought, given that gene therapy was an up-and-coming thing at the time. The eventual end to genetic conditions such as Cystic Fibrosis, Huntington’s Disease, Sickle Cell Anemia, some forms of Muscular Dystrophy, pre-disposition to malignant breast cancers and heart disease etc. etc. etc.
And what's the first mainstream use of this technology? Cutting the cost for insurance companies, ensuring that those who need the most healthcare, through no fault of their own, are least able to afford it.
Stuff the 'Valids'. I'm with the 'In-Valids' on this one, though I guess that's the whole point of the film...
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Sunday 12th March 2017 19:55 GMT bombastic bob
"you're doing it wrong" [meme]
THIS is yet another case where the "you're doing it wrong" meme applies.
They're NOT supposed to INCREASE gummint intervention in people's private lives. Obaka-"care" has done WAY too much of that already. These idiots should STOP calling themselves 'Republicans', or else just shut the 'FEEL' up and get out of the way!
Washington D.C., where ANY level of power, absolute or not, (eventually) corrupts absolutely
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Monday 13th March 2017 14:41 GMT CrazyOldCatMan
Re: "you're doing it wrong" [meme]
They're NOT supposed to INCREASE gummint intervention in people's private lives
But you are perfectly happy to let employers intervene in peoples' private lives? It's vanishingly small they they are doing it for the sake of the employee.
Washington D.C., where ANY level of power, absolute or not, (eventually) corrupts absolutely
I think you are limiting things too far. At least (in WDC) you have a *small* chance[1] that things are being done for the good of mankind. In business, not so much. Profit is their God, money they worship. People are merely disposable units.
[1] On the "D" side of the isle anyway. A much smaller chance on the "R" side by all appearances.
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Sunday 12th March 2017 17:43 GMT John Gamble
Re: The two things combine quite nicely
How wonderful that you can make up preposterous scenarios.
(Here's a clue: If you're shot, the first thing the surgeon is not going to do is perform a liver transplant. And oddly enough, matching candidates for livers doesn't require instantaneous matching of genotype. Why, you'd almost think medicine had advanced enough to keep people alive while performing what are now routine tests.)
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Saturday 11th March 2017 23:31 GMT Tomato42
Re: @Someone Else
@s2bu: everybody lies. There is no person on earth that didn't lie even once. Even infants feign crying
to get attention or food.
The difference is in the amount and the motives for the lies.
Republicans lie much more and they lie just to get more corporate kickbacks *ekhm* I mean, "campaign contributions". I mean, just look at the whole Global Warming thing, the new EPA chief doesn't even accept that CO2 forces heating. And the whole party line is not far from it.
Paris Hilton as she has more appreciation for basic facts than the whole (R) party combined.
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Biting the hand that feeds IT
