UK Insurance Co. Admits Using Genetic Screening 184
Cletusthesjyokel writes "Interesting read on how one of Britain's biggest insurance companies admitted to using unapproved genetic screening when deciding when to give coverage or not. Makes you think."
Re:First (Score:1)
CmdrTaco performs DNA screening of a new user:
% grep FIRSTPOST dnasample
GCATTCAGFIRSTPOSTCGATAGCAGTTGCAGGCTTACG
"...sorry dude, your posts start at -1."
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Re:Insurance screening... (Score:1)
When they came for the smokers to deny them coverage and raise their insurance rates, I didn't care because I did not smoke.
s/smoke/drink alcohol/g
They'll get to fast food eaters, non exercisers, non-condom users, etc. Still don't give a shit about smokers having their rights taken away?
Re:Genetic discrimination is nothing new (Score:1)
Actually it's quite easy to get an "F" printed next to "sex" on your driver's license. You just need to shave clean, put a wig, wear some imaginative clothing, and talk one octave higher during the driving test. It may feel ackward on the spot, but you save on insurance for the rest of your life. Not that I did it or anything, but it looks like it could work. My wig investment was completely reimbursed after the fifth bill, which is nice.
Probably not representative... (Score:2)
When I turned 25 last year, my rate dropped $55 a month. Same thing happened with my friends when they turned 25. Yes, we're comparing anecdotal evidence, but it does show that neither of our claims can be taken alone as evidence of a trend.
Re:Insurance vs. health care (Score:2)
You can have free-market medicine catering to a publicly-funded insurance system. The competition will be there, both on the care side and the insurance side.
To me, the point is that the more insurance companies are able to predict, the more important it becomes for society to step up and help those with unfortunate genetic dispositions. This is a moral responsibility.
Lars
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Re:Insurance vs. health care (Score:2)
Here in Sweden, cooperative non-profit initiatives is an old idea, still with a large trusting following. In particular, we have a large cooperative insurance provider (non-health care, since we have socialized medicine and insurance here) that is basically indistuingishable from other companies. In fact, they have a pretty bad reputation with some people. The only reason they are so big is probably through momentum and people thinking that a cooperative business (I believe it is owned through unions and consumer organisations) must be good. This is not true!
The point is that in an efficient and functioning market, as I believe the insurance industry is in most countries, there is no point in having a non-profit provider. History suggests that they are not more efficient and competative than other companies.
Lars
__
insurance as a class separation (Score:2)
Insurance stands to create such a separation
between the haves and the have-nots that it
could be a measure of the relative values of
people's lives. So if someone is insurable,
is their life more valuable than someone who
is not insurable? Suddenly the notion of equal
rights for all seems even further from the actual
case.
Does a genetic predisposition to sickle cell anemia cause one to be denied health insurance?
Why would society even begin to entertain the
argument that it is not?
Does it eventually bring our society to a level
where only the rich have the privilege of having
the resources to save their lives when the time
comes? I thought progress meant we should move
away from class separation, not straight towards
it.
I realize that luxuries like insurance are privileges not rights, but if there is an elite
class that can take healthcare for granted and
the rest that can go die in the stairwell, what
does that say about us as a civilization?
When the healthcare industry sees that it can
schedule its market based only upon the means of
those who have access to it, the poor suffer.
We've seen this with HMOs. There are enough people with the means to get healthcare that
the providers feel justified in considering "the rest" to be statistically insignificant.
That those millions of poor statistically insigificant sods don't rise together and
take control is a daily surprise for me...
One outrage after the next. There will be a
reckoning sooner or later. The huddled masses
might not have noticed any of the travesties
that raise our collective blood pressure here
on slashdot, but if they keep on, and keep on,
and keep on doing it, sooner or later it will
upset the illusion of peace that the poor and
working poor spend their pathetic miserable lives
in. Sooner or later, it will take away pay per
view wrestling. Then you'll see joe sixpack in
the trailerpark become a revolutionary hero.
Not before then, though.
Re:Insurance vs. health care (Score:2)
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Re:Insurance vs. health care (Score:2)
In Canada, the cost is the same, per capita, as in the USA. Yet, 100% of the population is COVERED.
It just had been revealed recently that those horror stories were totally false; they have been concocted by the myriad interests that want the universal health care wrecked.The fact is that in the USA, plenty of lives have been wrecked by the private health-care system (and I mean by secondary effects, like firing people because they cost the collective insurer too much, or
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Re:Missing the Point (Score:2)
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High tech free market insurance (Score:2)
Here is a succinct summation of the situation: in a free market, both the producers and consumers of insurance have an incentive to try to discover information about the insured, which will give them an edge. Consumers who know they are high risk are inclined to buy insurance, and have an incentive to hide their risk factors. Insurance companies, OTOH, try to ferret out all possible information from the consumers so as to accurately assess their risk.
With high tech, the situation evolves. To the extent that uncertainty is removed, insurance is no longer viable. At the one side, there are people who are fated to have something bad happen to them. Assuming the information is known, they can never insure. On the other hand, are people that don't have anything bad in their future. They can buy insurance, but they don't need it.
Of course we are nowhere near the point of being able to predict the future for everyone, and (IMO) we never will be. Large parts of the future are subject to our free wills, and other large parts are chaotic. And so the second result of high tech (of perfectly fated lucky people) is not really a problem. So there will always be insurance, and accidents to be insured against.
Now I want to talk about the main problem: that of a genetically fated occurance. Note that this can be problematic in different three ways.
The first is simply that it is unfair. It is unfair that I should die of cancer when I am 40, while you live to be 80. This is unfair, but it is not unjust. Injustice is a product of men's action; and unless we are willing to second guess God himself, all we can say about a person fated to die young is that it is a pity. To claim that personal misfortune gives an enforceable claim to the wealth of others is simply ludicrous. (Though I note that the current PC "victimhood sweepstakes" is an attempt to enshrine this very notion.)
The other two ways that a person's fatedness can be a problem is if that information is known assymmetrically. If only the insurance companies know it, then they can use it to deny the fated and exploit the healthy. If only the customer knows it, then we have the problem of adverse selection. So it is clear that any information the companies have, they should have to inform you of. Consumers should demand no less.
But again, back to the situation of uninsurables. The "problem" here is too much information. Many, many people here are saying that such information should simply not be allowed to exist. This is to stick one's head in the sand. That sort of information may be very important to have; i.e. there are very likely genetic risks which can be mitigated if known. So the consumers, at least, will have the information; and therefore they will act on it. And then we have the problem of adverse selection.
Others are proposing socialism. Socialism does not work, but it might stave off problems for a generation or two. But the reckoning always comes, and you need only to look at eastern europe to know that doing that to your grandchildren is the way of a coward.
The free market way of handling uninsurables is simple: just let the customers and insurers alone, and they will over time, gradually work out the right solution.
Now I know that will not satisfy a lot of you, being technocrats and unwilling to let things sit without a plan. So let me just suggest what I think will happen. We need to push back the point of buying insurance contracts to a time when there is true ignorance about outcomes. In the case of some of these genetic things, that may well be before a person is even conceived. That is to say, that prospective parents would insure their children-to-be, relying on the genetic lottery of sex to randomize the outcome enough so that it is sufficiently uncertain to buy insurance.
Re:Insurance vs. health care (Score:2)
This is what has happened to all of the socialized health care systems to date...they don't improve because they don't HAVE to improve. They have no competition, they don't have to worry about funding, and they know that the systems users have no other options, so there's no incentive to work harder. In the U.S, bad hospitals that don't advance go out of business. In Canada, the UK, Mexico, and all the other countries with socialized health care, the bad hospitals carry on because their funding can't be cut. THIS is why people come to the U.S. from all over the world to get their medical care, and it's why I don't understand the push towards socialized medicine here.
True story: A friend of my dads is a Canadian citizen, and he had made an appointment with his doctor because of some recurring light headedness. After waiting two months for an appointment to see his physician, the MD ordered a CT scan...but he was informed that he'd have to wait three more months because there weren't enough machines and the appointment list was rather long. A month later, while in Sacramento on business, he passed out at the wheel of his car and was rushed to the hospital. The CT scan that they immediately ran on him revealed a benign tumor at the base of his skull which was compressing one of the major arteries to the brain. They performed immediate surgery and he was fully healed in a matter of weeks. If not for free-market medicine that man would have been dead at 42, and there are THOUSANDS of others just like him. Socialised medicine just doesn't work.
Re:Insurance vs. health care (Score:2)
And yet the quality of that coverage is subpar. To me, a healthcare system that increases the number of people covered by decreasing the quality of that service is unacceptable. When you nationalize a system like medicine and subject it to needless government budget fights and cutbacks, the quality of service is BOUND to suffer.
t just had been revealed recently that those horror stories were totally false; they have been concocted by the myriad interests that want the universal health care wrecked.
The guy in the story above is an old college buddy of my dads, is now 50 years old, and lives in Edmunten(sp?) Canada. I still remember how spooked my dad was that someone "so young" could come so close to dying from something so routine. I can't attest to whether or not most of them are true, but I can assure you that this one is.
The fact is that in the USA, plenty of lives have been wrecked by the private health-care system
I actually agree with you there. I never said that the system couldn't use some work, only that socialisation isn't the answer. I'd point you to Californias public/private partnership used in the Medi-Cal program (public health insurance for low and zero income families). The system essentially works like this: you pick an insurance company from a short list of approved providers, and the state foots the bill. The only expense to the low-income family is the occasional $5 copay, and they are covered just like they would be under any other private health plan. My sister, a struggling college student with a three year old kid, has been using the system for several years now without a problem. Even though she has essentially zero income, she gets timely and immediate medical care and checkups for both herself and her son, Perhaps, instead of bantering on about knocking the foundations out of this system and building a new one, you should just look at fixing the problems. Californias system works well, so why not push YOUR state to adopt a similar system?
Oh, and LOL @ all the people wishing me death and dismemberment. I've always loved how many socialists would rather get personal than actually argue the merits of the system they're promoting.
Re:The numbers don't back you up. (Score:2)
Face it, young men get in more accidents than young women and the ones they do get into cause more damage.
Re:Quote From The Headline (Score:2)
I begin to think that state sponsored health insurance is the most humane choice. Possibly not the most ruthlessly effecient, but most humane.
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Re:Gattaca (Score:2)
Lucky you. We can only hope that your condition ends up spreading to certain sections [slashdot.org] of society.
Re:Quote From The Headline (Score:2)
Right to know? Where'd you come up with that concept?
Re:Insurance is for unpredictable things. (Score:2)
- Company finds new way to cut its costs.
- Its cost/profit curve has shifted so that the company makes the most money by cutting cost a little and outselling the competition.
- If the other companies cut their costs in a similar manner, then can regain some market share.
- If not, then they continue to lose market share to the innovator.
- Eventually the innovator either faces competition as efficient, or it has a monopoly.
- It cannot raise its prices, however, because the other competitors will come back. Its monopoly profits are naturally limited by its less efficient competitors.
This process takes time, and companies can make use of this to make large profits. That's acceptable, though, because government takes time to deal with this process as well. There's no magic bullet you can fire to kill the huge profits. Only free and unhindered competition can stop excessive profits in the long run.-russ
Re:You are so, so wrong ... (Score:2)
This is exactly what I meant when I said that "people" (more specifically, you) are confused. You want insurance to be a combination of risk dispersal and wealth redistribution. The more it does the latter, the less it can do the former. But the former serves a useful societal purpose. If you want to redistribute wealth, go ahead, get out a gun, and do it. But don't ruin the value of insurance doing it!
-russ
Re:Insurance is for catastrophies. (Score:2)
-russ
Re:Insurance is for unpredictable things. (Score:2)
-russ
Re:Insurance is for unpredictable things. (Score:2)
Now, as for the problem of genetic testing, you could spread that risk around by parents purchasing insurance for their child before it was born. So yes, the parents get genetically tested, however that can just tell you what risk pool you get into. You still have a risk, and if you're likely to have a child with predictably high medical bills, then perhaps you should reconsider having that child.
But really, this is only a short-term problem. Before too long, we'll be able to repair genetic damage, and prevent genetically-linked diseases. And by then, opponents of the future will be opposing *those* measures as well.
-russ
The real problem. (Score:2)
The problem is that the person facing some debilitating disease has no way to pay for it unless they have some insurance, if the insurance will not cover them because of some genetic marker then what do they do? How do they come up a hundred thousand dollars for years of therapy and drugs?
If the sanctitiy of profits for the insurance companies are paramount how do you propose to deal with people who have a higher then normal chance of getting some disease or another? What do you do with someone who has no coverage, who can not get coverage and who is sick?
RTFA (Score:2)
Most people lose money on life insurance - that's the way the insurance industry works. If you know (or suspect) that you are going to be dying soon, you don't need insurance. You'd be better off planning for it yourself, by saving money, and by trying not to acquire and/or create more dependents.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Another side to the issue (Score:2)
-medical purposes: diagnoses, and treatment. only practicing medical personnel (please note: pracicing, not just someone who has a medical degree and works for an insurance company to assess risks) should be able to see it
-investigation by authorities. This data should be independant from the medical data to protect consumer privacy. This data should never be seen outside established, controlled and monitored authorities.
Most of all, we need to get rid of the fallacious idea that self-regulation in any way works. It has been shown time and time again that regulation is needed.
//rdj
How does genetic testing cause outlays to go up? (Score:2)
So, genetic testing won't cause insurance companies to go insolvent as long as they don't decrease their rates.
But, it goes give them a wonderful excuse to raise the rates on those who are 'genetically inferior', to 'pay for the additional care they will need'. Care that they would have needed anyways before, care that was already covered from income paid by everyone.
So, to me, it looks more like an excuse to raise profits than anything else. Although, after the long term, it may help keep rates for healthy people low.
IMHO, I'd rather have roughly the same rates regardless of genetic heritage. It distributes the risk which is what insurance companies are supposed to do. We subsidize each other.
Re:GATTACAETC... race in the closet (Score:2)
Troll feeding time:
I'm sorry. I didn't realise that it was my fault that you have to pay more for car insurance. I feel so guilty now...
Oh, hang on, maybe it actually has something to do with the fact that males statistically have much higher car accident rates.
I have an idea. How about you make a start by driving carefully and bitch at any of your male friends who drive in a reckless manner and eventually the proportion of male car accidents might come down to match the proportion of female car accidents and then the insurance companies will have to lower their prices for men.
The reason men pay more for insurance is because men tend to be unsafe drivers. If you're annoyed about the amount you have to pay why not blame all the men out there who are driving unsafely, not the women who are driving safely.
Re:Genetic discrimination is nothing new (Score:2)
Ok, first off I'd better point out that I actually agree that it's unfair to make young males pay more for insurance just because as a group they have a higher chance of being involved in a serious accident.
However, the insurance companies aren't just discriminating against males because of some inherited trait that they can't change. They are doing it because of a behavioural trait of a lot of young males, that is, the tendency to drive unsafely.
Now, this situation could be changed if young males would collectively decide to drive more sensibly. Of course, that fact offers little comfort to those safe drivers who, due to their gender, get lumped in with the unsafe drivers who are driving up the price.
My point is that the above type of discrimination, while in many ways unfair, isn't really comparable to the idea of upping someone's premium because of a genetic predisposition to a disease that they can't change.
The latter has nothing to do with behaviour. It really can't be changed. The former, while it looks like genetically based discrimination, is in fact behaviourally based. It's just that the best way the insurance companies have come up with of predicting this behaviour is a genetic method. Not very fair.
The important difference is that you can actually change the amount you pay in car insurance by changing your behaviour. Granted you'll also have to encourage a lot of other people to change their behaviour. But if the behavioural statistics change then the price difference between men and women will also eventually disappear (maybe not immediately, but once people know that the proportions of accidents for males and females are equal then the insurance companies will have to modify their pricing to reflect this).
Re:GATTACAETC... race in the closet (Score:2)
Oh, I agree totally. It's unfair that all young males should have to pay a higher rate just 'cos some of them drive unsafely.
The previous poster seemed to be blaming women for the fact that men paid more though, whereas any intelligent person can see that the fault lies with that portion of the male population which drives unsafely.
RE: What about breaks for positive genes? (Score:2)
Re:One word... (Score:2)
Media
Why is it so scarry? (Score:2)
Insurance is not some kind of a right that we all have to have at an affordable rate. If your genes say that you will probably lose your hair by the time you're 30, it makes sense that you should pay more to insure your hair!
Why is going into your genes any more invasion of privacy than other types of medical examinations? Just because it was impossible/too expensive until now?
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Re:The real problem. (Score:2)
HOWEVER, (and this is getting a wee bit offtopic) my main problem is with insurance companies that screw the customer. And they do. Hell, their entire business model revolves around taking people's money and not giving it back. For instance, I was rear-ended in my dad's truck, an accident that I was CLEARLY not even REMOTELY at fault for. And the insurance agent just refused to pay up. (The situation was settled privately, in case you're wondering. And yes, my rates did go up even though the insurance company did absolutely nothing for me.)
And while we're on the topic of car insurance, I'm just dying to know why it is mandatory in [almost] every state. Why, dammit, why? If I want to drive my car around and run the risk of banging it all up, that's my business. If I run into some poor fool that doesn't have car insurance, that's his problem. Shoulda bought car insurange. But he shouldn't have to go to jail or have his car taken away because of it.
I've asked a great many people this very question, even a former insurance agent and have yet to get a straight and reasonable answer. Perhaps *someone* can enlighten me.
Re:One word... (Score:2)
Why hasn't somebody modded this up? Stupid moderators.
Good question. I had some mod points for this article, but I decided not to use them because I'm a "stupid moderator".
Re:Scary (Score:2)
Well, you fail to see that it was actually a money-grubbing corporation that was infringing on human rights, not the government. And as I understood the article, it was some PhDs and the insurance committee that stepped in to put a halt to it. And they were the ones urging government action against genetic discrimination by the insurance company.
Irony of all ironies...
Re:Scary (Score:2)
Granted we have some ridiculous bills in parliament (the RIP [homeoffice.gov.uk] bill for one) that do appear to infringe on human rights, but considering the amount of times I have been a victim of crime over the last six months (5) I would feel a whole lot safer if there were more Orwellian messures imposed.
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Re:Scary (Score:2)
I don't think the government are trying to instill any kind of 'thinking' in me, at the end of the day, the reason there are not enough police is because there are not enough resources, which is due to the fact that there is not enough money being ploughed into crime prevention.
The reason that there is not enough money being ploughed into crime prevention is because the government's main concern is to stay in power, so they try to make themselves look attractive by reducing tax, investing in the NHS and throwing money down that drain they call 'The Millenium Dome'. Eventually, when the whole population become victims of crime, as I am, maybe the governments priorities will change to reflect this, but in the meantime people like me will have to suffer and more people will die.
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Re:Quote From The Headline (Score:2)
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Negligence? (Score:2)
Re:GATTACAETC... race in the closet (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Hysteria (Score:2)
So, in the ideal case, the company should analyze your lifestyle, your genetic makeup, everything you do, and charge exactly what you will cost them, plus some fixed percentage of profit. How wonderful! Where can I sign up!
This is *silly*. The whole point of insurance it to spreak the risk. You don't know if you have some genetic disorder, do you? Maybe your cancer risk is 5% higher than Joe Public. Well, you just don't let them in. I want to hear you repeat that when you've been refused because of some odd defect that you never heard of (or get the option of paying 300%).
Once these companies are allowed to choose who they want to give insurance to, their point disappears, they shouldn't be allowed to make a profit without a point.
Most people over 60 should NOT have life insurance (Score:2)
A person who is above 60 probably shouldn't have life insurance. There is no reason too. Once a person doesn't have any dependants or no morgage to pay off they should cancel their life insurance policy. Life insurance is made to supplement income in the event of a traggic accident when people are counting on you.
I'm young, married, with no children,no morgage, and no life insurance. If anything happens to me there is no income to protect. Now, once we buy a house, I will get life insurance to cover the cost of the morgage, for me and my wife. That way if anything happens to either of us, the other still gets to keep the house and doesn't have to worry where the money is going to come from.
The same applies to children. You get life insurance to supplement income so the living spouse could still live comfortably and put the children through school.
So I wouldn't worry about genetic testing so much for life insurance purposes (what are your odds of dying under 60?) I would be worried that this will spread into the health insurance sector, then people could not get the care they need at a reasonable cost. That would be traggic.
Also, men are better drivers than women (Score:2)
It's true that far more accidents per year are caused by male drivers, and this is what the insurance rates are based on. -HOWEVER- This is because men, on average, spend far more time driving. When you actually do the math, you find out that women, on a per kilometer basis, have MORE accidents than men. There was a study done several years ago about this, I wish I had a link.
Re:Scary (Score:2)
Actually this is cause for optimism; it's the government stepping in to protect individual rights, and limit the power of corporations, just the sort of thing the government should do.
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First (Score:2)
________
Myth of why men pay more for auto insurance (Score:2)
False. The reason is that men are far more likely to be in an accident. If you look at the statistics involved, (those for my country anyway)
1) Men are twice as likely to be in an accident as women.
2) Men drive, per year, 4-5 times the kilometres than women. (Somewhat fewer women in the workforce)
Conclusion: Men tend to be twice as safe at driving as women tend to be, per kilometre driven. Men are still, however, at a much higher risk of accident because they tend to have to spend far more time on the road, commuting, etc.
Which means that if you're a women who drives to work, you're fooling yourself if you think statistics suggest you're safer.
Note that depending on the conditions where you live, even if only slightly more men than women are in the workforce, it can translate into a noticable gender-difference of average kilometres travelled.
(I assume that other insurers questions also narrow down who is likely to spend little or lots of time on the road.)
Note also that my stats are at least 2 years out of date, possibly more.
I'm not sure that driving miles rather than kilometres helps, either
How do libertarians deal with this issue? (Score:2)
I know some libertarians support culling the genetically weak, but I prefer to think that they don't speak for libertarianism so much as their own bigotry. (Such a person might claim that anyone who is uninsurable can pay for their own healthcare, and if don't earn enough money to do so, their contribution to society is obviously insufficient to justify their continued existance.)
But I have difficulty thinking of a highly deregulated free-market solution that does not entail this (though many such solutions appear to be more agreeable on the surface or In Theory).
The quandry - insurers sell the spreading of risk. Profit-motivated companies can enhance profits by diminishing the risk, while still maintaining the appearance of spreading it. Because they can then offer lower premiums at the expense of the people they reject, market success (consumer popularity) as well as profit margins are improved.
Or to put it in free market terms, those with insurance are being heavily subsidised by the costs to those denied it, by isolating rather than spreading the risk. No "everyone welcome" insurer could compete, dispite (and because of) the underclass market who can't buy insurance anywhere else.
Do libertarians feel that insurance should be regulated for the common good, or is there a belief that the free market can somehow make it work, or is there some other opinion? (hopefully not those almost eugenic views)
My suspicion is that I'll probably think the libertarian view on this matter is insane, but I'm hoping for a nice surprise
Re:Insurance is for catastrophies. (Score:2)
We are supposed to be members of a civilization, not pack animals that leave the weak to fend for themselves and die.
Made me forgive you for this:
If Linux were a beer, it would be shipped in open barrels so that anybody could piss in it before delivery.
What can I say? Thank God Linux isn't beer (it's speech, and speech can't be ruined by pissing on it)
Re:Insurance is for unpredictable things. (Score:2)
This is where Capitalism meets the wall. What happens (and is happening all over the economy) is that Monopoly is the end of all Capitalist systems. People will argue, Russ will retort by telling me I dont understand economics, but this is what invariably happens from this point:
Few large players entrench their positions.Form Non-Competitive alliances. (ala MPAA, RIAA, BigThreeAuto).
These large players effectively raise the barrier to entry in the industry.These 'competitors' set the tone of development, control capital deployment, technological standards, prices, modes of operation, etc etc etc. They essentially become clones of one another. They then collectively hold enough power that they can prevent all challenges to their profit from the outside, be that customer dissatisfaction, government regulation, public protest et al.
One of two things happens:
What most Capitalists always fail to mention during their speeches about the purity of the capitalist competition model is this inevitable end. You only need look around you. Massive corporate bodies abound. In all sectors. They are *very* powerful and are currently altering the political, social and cultural landscape to assure their survival. The WIPO, WTO, FTAA, etc etc are all bodies which purpose is to increase the 'environment' for these parasites to live. The world needs to be a homogenous market where these corporate entities set the terms of 'the deal'.
It takes money to make money. The rich get richer while the poor get poorer. Money loves company.
All trite examples of what Capitalism means. In 'the end' it always comes down to a Ruling Class with all 'the power' (money, votes, and puppet governments).
As long as Capitalism exists it allows an unfettered method to create a omnipotent Ruling Class.
If the 'good' of the capitalist system is to be used (efficiency through competition, innovation through competition, etc) it MUST be tempered with responsibility, public ownership, and STRONG ANTITRUST rules. Its all about balance.
What I would propose is a massive 'splitting of the top 1000 corporate entities' (generally). The working class is empowered through public ownership of all means of production (uh oh - here comes the calls from the McCarthy-ites). And Broad Public accountability and responsibility. The 'rights' of the Corporation disappear, and individuals are held personally responsible for their actions in their work lives.
We are headed down a very dangerous path right now - Massive Business interest is rolling over anything it likes with the backing of the US Government (and Military) in the relentless pursuit of 'profit'.
The planet needs new goals. We have conquered material want. Have we corrupted our culture with want and greed - people need new goals.
Ok - Im done preaching... flamesuit(on).
Use the screening AGAINST the insurance companies (Score:2)
Frank: Hey Bob, Company XYZ uses genetic screening to find out if you're likely to die from a disease earlier on in life. Let's go apply!
Bob: Why?
Frank: Well - if they offer to insure us, we know we aren't going to get sick, and we don't need to buy anything other than accident insurance. If they don't offer to insure us, we'll go to company ABC (they don't do screening) and sign up with them.
Bob: But won't we have problems because of a "previously known condition"?
Frank: Nah. Because screening is illegal, there's no way for us to know that we were refused because of some sort of predisposition for disease...
Bob: I get it now! And once we're insured, we'll ask our insurance company to screen us so we can take preventative action against any possible diseases. We'll get them to pay for gene therapy...
Frank: Now you're getting it!
Re:Missing the Point (Score:2)
Thats part of what makes it great. I'm not rich, and I could very well die because I can't afford a treatment I need, and I don't have health insurance. But I take responsibility for my self and my life. I don't feel like the government owes me anything, and I don't feel like I should pay for anything that I don't want to. Thats what freedom means, and if it costs me my life, or the life of someone I love, then I think its all worth it.
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Re:Missing the Point (Score:2)
But can you choose how much you want to pay for health care? No, I didn't think so. You have no choice, you pay the same thing no matter what, there is no free market, no competition, no choice.
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Insurance is not a right. (Score:2)
When the government gets involved in insurance, it destroys the competition, and hence, prices go up, the house can charge people (through taxes) as much money as it needs, and can assume any risk it wants, even if it knows its going to lose out. Inefficiency is created.
If you selected a hospital and doctor like you selected a car, rather than not being able to comparison shop because of insurance issues, the free market goes out the window. The insured also has the moral hazard in that they don't care how many times they pointlessly go to the doctor, they are not paying for it. This is especially a problem with government health insurance, where there is no co-payment.
The result? People who don't want to play the insurance gambling game are forced to, because the industry is not market driven anymore, its mostly subsidized, and prices are sky high.
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Re:Insurance is not a right. (Score:2)
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Re:In the end, YOU will pay more no matter what. (Score:2)
Their goal is to make money by winning bets placed about someone's future. You don't like their game, you shouldn't have to play. With insurance companies letting doctors charge huge amounts, its impossible to NOT play their game. The insurance companies collectively have forced you to use one of their products.
Sure its monopolistic, but people are too stupid to see the forest for the trees on insurance issues. They want to involve the government, making things even worse.
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Re:Missing the Point (Score:2)
I agree completely. Involving the government denies people the right to seek affordable health care of their choice, because government subsidies make private health care prices sky high. Same thing happened with Universities.
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Re:Genetic discrimination is nothing new (Score:2)
I suspect that some of the studies that the insurance companies conduct don't draw lines in the right places. And also, that they are guilty of out-n-out BS sometimes. For example, I got told for 3 years that when I turned 25, I'd see a dramatic reduction in premium, seeing as how I was leaving a higher risk group. The month after I turned 25, my premium actually jumped $40 per year.
I think that genetic discrimination is largely inappropriate. Behavior based is better, because
it gives people control. There's got to be some better way of doing insurance, though...
Sometimes I think it might be cool to start a non-profit insurance company -- that is, one whose primary mission is NOT to be a profit center, but to provide good insurance. People would work there because they wanted to part of that mission...
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Re:Insurance vs. health care (Score:2)
The point you bring up is valid, and I've heard some other scary stories about Canada. There are lots of people who have long waits. But Canada has some success stories as well -- I've had friends who've had good experiences with the system. And let's not forget the HMO horror stories we have down here. Maybe there's some solution that can provide better coverage than an existing system.
One thought is to socialize insurance but NOT medicine. Let individuals/organizations that provide the best service still compete for (and win) the available money. Under such a system, for your story above, maybe three or four enterprising souls realize that if there's such a long line of people waiting for MRIs, THEY can collect the money for doing the scan if they invest in the proper equipment and personell.
The other thought I've seen that I like is to create some non-profit (but non-state) insurance companies, whose primary mission would be NOT profit for shareholders, but actual maximizing of benefits for customers (while keeping itself alive). You'd think that w/o having to pay dividends to shareholders, they could offer competitive rates and/or better benefits. The beauty of this plan is that anybody with enough capital and philanthropy could start tomorrow. The problem is getting the capital purely of philanthropy....
There's probably other good ideas. People just have to stop thinking in terms of "free market" vs "government run" solutions.
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I hate insurance. (Score:2)
Very simple, consider two scenarios.
Scenario 1: you pay $100 a month in insurance. After 3 years with a perfect record you cause a horrible accident and destroy some guy's brand new $45,000 BMW and cause $2000 in damages to your beat up Ford Pinto. However, your insurance company doesn't want to get stuck with the bill so they hire a lawyer and go to court against the other guys insurance company. This does happen in real life, no corperation is going to throw out $50k if it can get that ammount reduced in court. Either it ends up paying less, and the poor guy you hit suffers, or they lose the suit and end up just wasting money on the lawyer. Not only that, but there is the money to pay the insurance adjuster. And the insurance claims rep. And the insurance office secretary. All expenses that would not exist without the insurance system as it is. In the end, you WILL pay back the $50k you lost your insurance company, unless you die first. Chances are you will pay more. A few months after the accident your premium will triple and for the next 20 years it will not go back down.
Scenario 2, no insurance. You hit a guy, total his $45k BMW and ruin your $2k piece of trash car. Ouch, you MUST pay or else the guy will sue and get the cash directly from your pay, and you will not be able to drive untill the matter is worked out. With no other option you are forced to take out a $47k loan. Luckily you had $5k in the bank, saved money you invested and earned cash on that didn't have to go torwards your insurance premiums since you don't have insurance. You end up with a 10 year loan for $42k at 10% interest. Ouch, that hurts- but do the math, you will be far better off in the end than you would be with insurance. Why? Because you only pay for the damage. You don't pay extra to pay the insurance company's lawyer, you don't pay extra to pay the insurance company employees, and you don't pay extra for the insurance companies profit.
That is why I hate insurance companies and mandatory insurance. Please feel free to let me know just how wrong I am.
Re:Insurance is for unpredictable things. (Score:2)
Life Insurance IS compulsory in the UK... (Score:2)
So, you have the wrong genes? You're never going to own a home, either.
Re:Genetic discrimination is nothing new (Score:2)
Maybe. But they have a profit incentive to draw them in the right places, because if their competitors can draw them better, the competitor will make more money. Why? With the more accurate groupings, the competitor can sell to the better-identified low-risk group for less and give the high-risk groups a choice of paying more or going elsewhere.
BTW, there are plenty of non-profit insurance companies -- they're called mutuals, in which every policyholder is a "shareholder" in the corporation. Since each policyholder's interest is in keeping his premiums down, the mutuals use the same risk analysis as the for-profit insurance companies to either discourage high-risk people from joining the mutual and raising costs, or charge them enough that the high-risk group pays for itself.
Re: (Score:2)
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Re:Quote From The Headline (Score:2)
Re:Also, men are better drivers than women (Score:2)
Gattaca (Score:2)
We seem to be heading more and more towards a situation like that in the movie "Gattaca". Genetic have's and have not's.
Where does it end? I'm colorblind. That's a genetic condition. No doubt some insurance company could come up with a reason to not pay out on my car insurance...
Thieves, the lot of them...
I take this personally! (Score:2)
Re:Insurance is for unpredictable things. (Score:3)
Ummm...No. Insurance exists to mitigate risk. It mitigates risk by spreading risk-associated costs among a large body of payors. That an insurance company makes a profit is a direct result of it's skill at *pricing* and *predicting* the odds of particular risks. If it were true that insurance can only protect against "unpredictable" events, then there would be no way to price it, would there? What would you pay for protection against an unknown and unpredictable risk?
"If you can predict it but the insurance company cannot...you can exploit the insurance company's ignorance. If this happens often enough, then the insurance company cannot make money, and goes out of business."
Uh-huh. And if the insurance company can predict and you cannot, then the insurance company can take advantage of your ignorance. Who goes out of business then? And who has (or would gladly pay to compile) the large statistical databases on risk categories associated with particular genetic loci? This information won't be free.
"Instead, insurance works to buy an unwanted risk from you. In order to price this risk fairly, the insurance company has to understand the risk."
Indeed. And when the "risk" no longer becomes a "risk"--but rather, a certainty--what happens then? If you, as an insurance company, know that a person will come down with alzheimer's (or any other expensive, terminal disease, for that matter), do you take on that person as a customer? Sure--but only if he/she pays as much as their disease will cost, on average. In this case, what are you selling? Snake oil.
"If it cannot understand the risk...then it must charge more for the insurance. Guess who pays this cost? Yep, all insurance customers do."
To wit, I refer you to my original point--insurance exists to mitigate risk, not eliminate it. Yes, we all pay for the fellow down the road with AIDS, or the woman in the next county with Lymphoma. But we're paying to mitigate our own risk as well--in the event that we should develop Lymphoma or AIDS, we know that we'll be helped by our neighbors' payments. The insurance companies make money from this scheme by calculating risks in aggregate, and adding on a chip for the house, so to speak.
Obviously, the better the "house" gets at calculating odds, the better their margins are going to be. But when the house *knows* of an outcome in advance, it becomes a game of "give me your money, and I'll give you a 0% chance of getting it back." This is the promise of genetic information--the house will know of the outcome in advance, and will be able to pick and choose who plays so that nobody wins. And that's just theft, in my book.
a good reason to buy life insurance now (Score:3)
Even if you don't have a family yet: if you think you will have one, buy life insurance now.
Financial advisors generally recommend having 6-8 times your yearly salary. Better make that 6-8 times what you think you'll be making at the peak of your career, instead of 6-8 times what you're making now.
If you're young, in good health, and a non-smoker, term life insurance is pretty cheap. You can get half a million for a few hundred dollars a year.
And employers: you should be offering life insurance as a benefit to your employees. Offering insurance to groups is a good way for insurance companies to mitigate the problem of adverse selection.
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Re:The real problem. (Score:3)
Compulsory State Insurance.
Just like it's done in Canada, for example.
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Hysteria (Score:3)
There is a widespread belief that insurance companies discriminating against someone because they have a genetic predisposition to a particular disease is somehow "wrong", and I don't get WHY. Insurance companies, like any other business, can only survive if their income exceeds their outlay. The natural response for ANY business must be to focus on reducing outlay. If you're an insurance company, you do that by refusing to cover sick people. This is why we take health exams when we want to buy large life insurance policies. This is why I pay more for my insurance because I'd smoked for a few years. Health insurance is like a big money pool, and the best way to make sure that there's enough money to go around is to limit the amount of money any one person can take out of it.
And if you have somebody who is likely to develop a MAJOR problem because of a genetic problem? Well, you just don't let them in. There are high-rate programs to cover people with pre-existing conditions, and they'll have to join them like anyone else would who had a pre-existing disease. While I'm sure that some people will shout about the "unfairness" of paying more because of a genetic disorder, it must be pointed out that they will also be USING more insurance than the average healthy person. Blame nature, not the insurance company.
Re:What a great place.... (Score:3)
If you speak to a Brit you will find that the rising level of crime has tied in quite astoundingly with the decline in amount of police officers. Back in the good old days being a policeman was an attractive job prospect. The pay was very good and there were excellent benefits. Unfortunately it hasn't kept up with the times and being a police officer is nowhere near as attractive as it used to be. Hence falling police numbers, hence rising crime.
To give you an example. In my Parents' hometown (Kenilworth, Warwickshire) the local police station no longer has a policeman in the evening. So, if anything happens in Kenilworth the Police have to be called from nearby Leamington, about 20 mins away. I think just about any crime can be done in 20 minutes. Compare this to five years ago, where an office could be called from the local station 2 minutes away.
This is why crime is rising in Britain. Anyway, do you really think we should trust our neighbours, with the common man's dubious knowledge of the law, with crime prevention or should we trust those who are trained in the very letter of the law? That, IMHO, is the difference between a Brit and someone from the US. In Britain we see the Police as those who uphold the law. IMHO those from the US want the ability to take the law into their owns hands, which is all well and good as long as everyone knows EXACTLY what the law is.
Re:Insurance is for unpredictable things. (Score:3)
Second of all, in a free market, a monopolist can only keep her monopoly by continuing to compete more efficiently than anyone else. Fail to compete, and the market will discard you like last year's pop music star.
Third, most of your complaints are due to too much government regulation, not too little. Sure, if a monopoly can use government to hinder the freedom of the market, then it's not subject to correction. And that's bad. Any free-market economist will tell you that it's bad. But the solution is not more regulation, it's less. Why? Because when you pass regulations, the regulatee inevitably has a greater interest than anyone else, and so can apply political power to affect the regulations to help them. Very, very often, corporations welcome regulation. Regulation hinders the market, and lets corporations achieve greater profits than a free market would support.
Anyway, learn more about economics and you'll see where you're wrong.
-russ
Re:Quote From The Headline (Score:3)
Except that it's not the government, it's a company, which doesn't have to treat you equally and fair. Insurance companies already discriminate against males by jacking up car insurance premiums.
I wouldn't find this to normally be a problem, however car insurance is REQUIRED to drive, so essentially when it comes right down to it the government is discriminating by association.
But this is life insurance, you don't really need life insurance, so you really are screwed.
-- iCEBaLM
And then ... (Score:3)
Now with a very sarcastic view of it all someone might say "Well, the human race needs a healthy dose of darwinism anyway". Well, they may well live among a race of superintelligent, beautiful and healthy people (until a disease sweeps it all away since none of them was resistant to it, there are some arguments in favor of a lare genetic pool), but i prefer that planet to be elsewhere, or if it must be earth then maybe in a hundred years time. Sadly we already had some of it in not too recent past, when a monstrous regime declared part of the population as "unfit for living" and set to work towards a "superior race". Well, i'm happy to live in a world where not everybody is blonde and has blue eyes.
As abortions as consequence of "genetic defects" are already happening the question is, where the line will be drawn, and where it will be shifted after that
One word... (Score:3)
Re:One word... (Score:3)
For those who don't know: the movie Gattaca is about a future where people are classified by their genes, and parents often choose what genes their children will have as opposed to normal mating. This classification by genes results in any children who are created the natural way having fewer opportunities: getting rejected for jobs, etc.
We're all defective somewhere in our genome (Score:3)
"I may not have morals, but I have standards."
Pre existing conditions (Score:3)
Now, you could argue that you'd still have the option of going to another company that doesn't perform these tests, but if this sort of thing gains popular acceptance there could potentially be a new form of 'genetic discrimination' taking place all over the world.
And this could extend beyond insurance to things like getting jobs, immigration, marriages... all sorts of things.
Then again, humanity's always looking for a new reason to keep one group or another down, so I guess it's really nothing new.
p.s. Hope this makes sense, it's been a long day, I'm tired and explaining thoughts is difficult...
Gev
The Obvious Problem with the Genome (Score:3)
The person who opined that it destroys the concept of shared risk is right on. Premiums today are based on not knowing the probability of Alzheimer's or Huntington's or even heart disease. This knowledge skews the statistics in favor of - guess who! - the insurance companies because current rates are based on zero knowledge of a person's prediliction toward these diseases. I don't see them reducing premiums.
Gattaca has been mentioned in half of the posts so far, but that movie comes close to identifying the dangers inherent in detailed knowledge of a person's makeup.
As they say in the article, the insurers are not to be trusted to police themselves, and it is now up to the government to regulate the industry here. But they already screen and presumably deny coverage to Huntington's candidates! So why shouldn't they continue to discriminate against clients?
The net result of all this may be nationalization of health care in England, America, and everywhere. This might be a good thing, as it will free up genetic research without having at least this particular ethical question.
The alternative is to have certain races pay more or less depending on their susceptibility toward a given illness. This, as has been pointed out, is discrimination on a grand scale. Whereas in the past an insurance company couldn't legally say "we can't insure you because you are a Black man", now they can say "we won't insure you because you have the gene for sickle cell anaemia."
By the way, very very soon (according to the book "Genome" - read it!) many of the capabilities revealed in Gattaca will be available. It will prove to be a revelation of "Future Shock" proportions. Bigger than the internet? Hard to say from here. But pretty damn big.
Re:Quote From The Headline (Score:3)
It is expected that most insurance companies would have some sort of medical exam for things like life insurance, to avoid issues just like this.
But more general items like health insurance are another thing. Or would you like to have YOUR own insurance cancelled because, you are getting older, and might get sick, and thank you for paying out the 30 or 40 years of premiums without much payout.
There has been a major problem with insurances companies cancelling insurance whne you go to use it in a major way.
In this context, avoiding people who might not even know they have some genetic condition can be suspect. The point is not insuring people based on pre-existing conditions is a bad thing. The potential insurance liability should be shared "equally" (or at random) by all insurers.
"Unapproved" tests in this case is not the same as "unapproved" medicine. Medicine is sometimes regulated so that people do not hurt themselves. Tests are sometimes regulated so that the companies do not rip you off.
In the end, YOU will pay more no matter what. (Score:3)
If the government bans the insurance companies from doing this, the insurance companies will pay out more to these high-risk individuals, and your insurance rates will increase to cover it.
If the government lets the insurance companies operate freely, the government will end up footing the bill through welfare (i.e. your money via taxes).
If it was a libertarian society, the government would not interfere with the insurance companies. Well to-do high-risk people would pay more in insurance, but they would be covered. Poorer high-risk individuals would not be insured, and they would eventually need charity to pay their bills if they succumb to one of these genetic diseases. In such a society, with far fewer taxes, it would be much more common to donate money to charities and community organizations. Your money.
So although I'm generalizing quite a bit, you are paying for genetic diseases no matter which route is taken. It just seems "nicer" to ban the insurance companies from discriminating like this.
I bet the same people up in arms over these genetic tests are the same ones that are fighting anything to do with genetic engineering, genetic science, etc.
Kind of ironic, since we will eventually lessen genetic diseases through genetic engineering, IMO.
-thomas
Why common-sense regulation is necessary. (Score:3)
World governments need to set clear and fair standards concerning the use of genetic information. First, genetic testing can not be a requirement for anything, especially insurance. Second, every individual should have to give explicit permission for each entity given access to the results of genetic testing. Finally, it should be as illegal to discriminate based on genetic testing as it is to discriminate based on visible genetic attributes such as race. Only then will I volunteer genetic information for the purpose of genetic testing or screening.
Re:Insurance is for unpredictable things. (Score:3)
Insurance companies have existed for ages offering coverages for tons of diseases without the ability to genetically screen applicants, and they're not going out of business. They don't need to genetically discriminate. Denying them the ability to do so wouldn't pose a competitive threat to their business model--it would simply preserve the status quo, an environment that they've adapted to and that they prosper in.
Exactly. All of us do. You don't have a one-on-one relationship with an insurer, where they bet that you personally will pay more in premiums than they pay out on your behalf. The risk is spread amongst a large pool of insured people. We all pay premiums, and our payments cover the claims of others. Sooner or later we'll be making our own claim, and others will pay for us. That's the whole point of insurance--to pool financial resources to cover present costs, while providing coverage to everyone who pays for it.
Keep this in mind: nobody is genetically perfect, and nobody is immortal. We all get sick, we all die, and many of us rack up some substantial bills in the process. Some diseases can be tested for genetically, and some can't. Who are you to insist that your premiums be lowered at the expense of others just because the insurance company hasn't figured out what's wrong with you?
You are so, so wrong ... (Score:3)
I agree. You are one of them.
Insurance cannot protect you from everything bad.
Insurance cannot protect you from anything, despite the claims in some of the advertisements. Insurance (in this case, specifically life insurance) can only protect your dependants from the financial consequences of your (premature) death.
The reason insurance works is that it spreads the risk over as large a number of people as possible. To screen people for the presence of selected traits, over which they have no control, and which may or may not cause premature death, is just plain wrong. If they were screening for all causes of premature death, it might become acceptable, but it is not acceptable to charge you a higher price because you might die of breast cancer, while charging me a lower rate because I won't - despite the fact that I might be more likely to die of something else they're not screening.
You never find questions like "Do you drive a car? If so, how many kilometres per year?" or "Do you make frequent long-distance flights in economy class?"
OK, I admit that they ask if you smoke, or if you participate in dangerous sports. Maybe that's wrong too - but all those potential causes of death are under the control of the insured. If you don't like your premiums being higher, then stop doing it.
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This should come as no surprise (Score:3)
Note: Read the last sentence twice because I know most of you read it wrong the first time. I didn't write if they'd ever failed an AIDS/HIV test. I mean literally, if someone had gone to the doctor worried about HIV, had a test, been given the all clear, and had subsequently tried to apply for life or health coverage, they'd be turned down.
The reasoning behind this logic? Well, anyone who'd be worried about getting AIDS must be living an at-risk lifestyle.
Oh, for the benefit of the usual trolls who post on how this just proves that, once again, the "socialist" UK has a dreadful human rights record, compared to the free market US could I point out that the type of insurance we're talking about here is pretty much a free market in the UK, regulated no more than it is in the US.
What we're seeing here is the usual self-interest run amok that keeps profits up and prices low at the expense of fundamental freedoms. In this case, at least in Britain people will get health insurance from the state, and can seriously embarrass the government, to the point of risking it being toppled in an election, if a government ever decides to refuse health coverage on the grounds of ill health. It's not perfect, but it does, in this case, guarantee privacy and fairness where it matters.
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Keep attacking good things as "communist"
GATTACAETC... discrimination down to a science (Score:4)
I wouldn't be surprised if it were... insurance
companies already get to discriminate by criteria that practically no one else can: age and gender. Maybe they have race in the closet too.
I just saw Gattaca a few weeks ago for the first time. The phrase that stuck out in my head was "discrimination down to a science". The thing is, the insurance companies -- and who knows who else -- already DO have it down to a science with statistical analysis
And apparently, it's not just coming, it's already here.
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Insurance is for unpredictable things. (Score:4)
Instead, insurance works to buy an unwanted risk from you. In order to price this risk fairly, the insurance company has to understand the risk. If it cannot understand the risk (because it's prohibited from certain actions), then it must charge more for the insurance. Guess who pays this cost? Yep, all insurance customers do.
Ever noticed how seldom politicians are economists? Perhaps that explains their continued enactment of uneconomic laws.
-russ
Comment removed (Score:4)
Quick summary of issues (Score:5)
1. If you were to become greviously sick, you most likely could not afford to pay for your health care. The cost to you would be catastrophic.
2. Your insurance company has enough cash that it can afford to pay for you if you get sick. It maintains this state of affairs by setting everyone's premiums so that the company's aggregate expected income is at least 100% of its expected liability. Income above 100% of liability represents the insurer's profits.
3. Given a large enough pool of customers and a comparatively small rate of disease, the company can cover its liability through reasonable (i.e. non-catastrophic) premiums even if it charges everyone the same rate. In this scenario, people with low risk pay higher premiums to subsidize those with high risk. Provided the number of high-risk individuals is small, their extra risk can be spread over the entire customer pool at a minimal cost per person.
4. Alternatively, the insurer can charge higher-risk individuals higher premiums, thereby eliminating the subsidy. Without such subsidies, high-risk individuals may be charged catastrophic premiums and therefore become uninsurable.
Let us assume that the insurer has perfect knowledge of everyone's risk (i.e. the probability that they will get sick). Under what circumstances is it fair(*) to subsidize those with higher risk, rather than making them pay the cost of said risk?
Proposition: "A fair insurer asks its customer pool to subsidize those risks over which the individual has no control, while charging to the individual those risks that she assumes voluntarily." Discuss.
Proposition: "An insurance company seeking to maximize its profit in a competitive setting cannot arbitrarily raise its premiums. It will therefore take every legal measure to lower the aggregate risk of its insured pool. In particular, the company's interests favor denying or charging catastrophic premiums to high-risk individuals, regardless of whether such action is 'fair'(*)."
Discuss.
(*) where "fair" means "consistent with your favorite ethical/moral system."
Re:Quote From The Headline (Score:5)
The second point of view is the insurance company's. How do they know the person applying for coverage isn't terminally ill and will make the company pay out millions of dollars for treatment? The company has a right to know the state of their paitents before giving coverage.
Wake up and smell the espresso, dude, the article is about LIFE Insurance, not Health insurance. Millions of dollars in treatment for a DEAD person? I wouldn't Insure your life - you're smoking crack.
I have no problem with an Insurance company saying "Look, moron, until you quit smoking you're paying an extra $ amount for us to insure your life, cuz you're killing yourself." Smoking and other self-destructive behaviour I can change - my genetic make-up I CANNOT. This is tantamount to the US Government saying "Seeing as this particular group (OK, I'm being P.C. here..) statistically has a tendancy to commit crimes, we'll get the cops to pay special attention to them." Oops, bad example.
You get my drift though - Insurance companies love this type of thing. You pay an Insurance company to assume risk for you - and then they do thier damndest to elimanate that risk. Please realize that an Insurance company takes YOUR money and invests it - that's how they make THIER money. When they pay out, they loose the money to invest, and can't make more profit. So, they make you pay more if you're at greater risk of dying, in order to cover the profit's they're likely to loose by you checking out early. If they had thier way, anyone with a serious illness in their family history would pay DOUBLE for life insurance. Genetic testing would give them an Iron Fist with which to asses the risk of insuring your life - so not only would you be sick, you'd be poor from paying overly inflated life insurance rates because of your genetic makeup. And Lord help you if you're pre-disposed to cancer or something and your employer finds out...
If this were allowed to continue, anyone who could get sick would end up at the fringes of society - "Fuck you if you're going to die at 50, this guy will live to 100 and is a better investment." You'd end up with more discrimination based on genetic makeup, just like the morons who make skin color an issue. After all, that's a genetic trait, isn't it?
Damn. Done ranting. Need Coffee...
Genetic discrimination is nothing new (Score:5)
Where's the difference? You have no more control over your sex than you do the rest of your genome, so how is it permissible to discriminate for car and life insurance on the basis of sex, but not other genetic factors? Just because it takes some fancy testing to determine those factors doesn't change the situation one bit.
Missing the Point (Score:5)
Free market or no, insurance companies or no -- as long as doctors and hospitals are accessible, people WILL have health care. And the cost WILL be distributed across all levels of health and affluence. It already is.
In the United States, the people will not stand for such actions. If it gets to the point where people even perceive the risk that they might not have health insurance because of being turned down for genetic (or any other reason) - espescially if it is the 'future risk', the public will not stand for it. They will lobby the government, elect officials that promise, and do everything they can to either regulate the industry, or get the goverment to provide health care to every man, woman, and child, reguardless of their condition.
The only reason socialized medicine was fought off in the United States was because the insurance companies weren't doing a bad job, and it's at least a percieved fact that government healthcare would be inferior to private healthcare.
But if a large part of the populace had no access to affordable medical care, simply because they may develop a disease in the future - the Medical community would lose a LOT of business.
If the insurance company won't insure a guy who is a perfectly healthy and PAYING client now, who would normally go in for annual checkups, dental care, immunizations, etc - with his/her children. With genetic screening, the children won't be insured either (having inherited this defect) If this were the case, a very large amount of the populace wouldn't seek health care unless absolutely necessary.
And the medical community loses revenue in a very big way because of the reduced number of patients.
So, you would have two major forces - an even greater proportion of the populace demanding insurance reform, or government health care, and a growing number of health care companies demanding the same.
In the end, everybody WILL have health care. The difference is whether we will have responsible, self-policing insurance companies, heavily regulated and untrusted insurance companies, or the Government.
It is simply not in the insurance companies (or the people's) long-term interest to deny people based on pre-existing conditions of any kind.
Even a pure capitalist would agree it is not just to punish someone based off of conditions that were never a choice of the affected.
Only the already wealthy would try to forge an argument that would make it sound like a Good Thing TM to willfully deny health care to people - not because there is an insufficient amount of care in the area - but because of willfully denying that care because it hurts THEIR already overflowing pocketbook... And then they try to convince as many people as they can that it will take money from everybody else's pocketbook too. It simply isn't the case.
In a modern civilization, the rich will pay for the poor - whether by choice, by tax, or by gunpoint. The rich are always in the minority, and they already have all they need. It's an enevitable consequence of democracy that the voice of the people will outnumber the voice of the rich, and the voice of the people will force the rich to pay to support the poor's needs.
Scoff now - but the concept of public schools, social security, welfare, medicare... all programs that are firmly in place now - these programs would have been scoffed at as ruinous, revolutionary, and completely stoppable by the Vanderbuilts and Rockefellers of a century ago. The rich didn't have their way then, nor will they now.
We won't stand for it, and we'll get our respective governments to intervene before it does.
Re:GATTACAETC... race in the closet (Score:5)
If it becomes legal to discriminate by DNA,
race most certainly WILL be part of the package.
After all, what we call race is just a few broad phenotypes associated with some genotypes.
It's well established that people of certain races are more susceptible to certain ailments. Skin cancer for whites, sickle-cell anemia for some blacks, etc....
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Insurance screening... (Score:5)