Under ACA, companies couldn't discriminate based on your genetic tests: Trumpcare--YES THEY CAN!

[riversedge]

First I have heard of this! Whow. Gets worse each Time I read about this horrible bill!


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Mary E Losch‏ @MaryELosch 23h23 hours ago


Suprised there is not more coverage of this part. #AHCA #NOTokay


WIRED Science‏Verified account @WIREDScience

Under ACA, companies couldn't discriminate based on your genetic tests. In the new health care bill, you can.

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Author: Adam Rogers. Adam Rogers Science Date of Publication: 05.04.17.
05.04.17

7:55 pm

The House Health Plan Makes Your Genes a Preexisting Condition

Getty Images

Of all the provisions of the Affordable Care Act—“Obamacare,” if you’re on a first-name basis—the one that seemed the most uncontroversially humane was the guarantee that insurance companies could not use so-called preexisting conditions to deny coverage. If you had a chronic illness or had recovered from something and lost your insurance, or if you quit or got fired, you could still get onto a plan.

But the odds say that sick people stay sick or get sicker, and insurance companies don’t make a profit by paying out. By voting to repeal the ACA and replace it with … well, with something, not totally clear what, the Republican-led House of Representatives seems to have nuked the preexisting condition guarantee. The new bill, which passed in a close 217-213 vote, allows insurance companies to charge sick people more. According to one nonpartisan analysis, it allocates enough money to cover those higher rates for just 5 percent of people with preexisting conditions.

Think it can’t get worse? Hold, as the saying goes, my beer. The ACA specifically protected against discrimination for preexisting conditions that showed up through genetic tests. You might not be sick yet—in technical terms, the illness has not manifested—but if you, for example, test positive for one of the pathogenic variants (a less X-Manly term than “mutation”) in the BRCA gene that predisposes you to breast cancer, you could still get covered. If the House bill becomes law, that protection vanishes.


Advances in genomics in the seven years since the ACA became law haven’t helped scientists better define a preexisting genetic condition. The more you know about genetics, the more conditions start to look preexisting. But multiple interacting genes and environmental effects mean it’s hard to tell what’ll turn from potential to real. The issue is “penetrance”—what proportion of people who have a pathogenic variant will actually get the disease? “You could say all of us have a preexisting condition of import, and it’s just a matter of when we’re going to manifest it,” says Eric Topol, a genomicist at the Scripps Research Institute. “Very few of us are genetically bulletproof.”

It’s not like nobody saw this debate coming. Even back when sequencing a human genome cost $100 million, policymakers and scientists were trying to figure out how to safely get data from people while simultaneously keeping insurers and employers from using it to screw them. After a decade of debate, the result was the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act, a 2008 bill that aimed to protect people’s genetic privacy. GINA wasn’t perfect—it doesn’t extend to long-term care and life insurance, for example.............................


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[dalton99a]

1. And they certainly WILL.

[Afromania]

2. This is the other shoe to the bill that let employers request your genetic tests.

Gattaca here we come.

[MontanaMama]

4. This is the primary reason

I have refrained from taking those 23&Me or Ancestry.com genetic tests. It's not that I'm
not curious, I just don't think that data is safe. I can just see it being sold to the highest corporate bidder. Not unlike our internet search history.

Be careful people.

[Ilsa]

7. I agree.

We won't know what theanalysis company might do with the genetic information, or if it can be acquired, and I don't want to be questioned about it by a company doctor or insurer.

[Horse with no Name]

8. Me too

My Dad died of cancer and I was diagnosed 2 years ago--hopefully treatment will remain a success. I really want to know my genetic profile. But for the reasons you stated, I refrained. I'm glad now.

[MontanaMama]

10. Similar story here.

My Grandad and father died of early onset dementia. Mr mom died of cancer. I'm terrified that I carry the gene for one or both. I don't dare get tested. At 52, I guess I'll let the chips fall.

[No Superstition]

5. I had resigned myself last November to the end of the ACA.

I tried to put a happy face on it by looking forward to single-payer after the GOP screwed things up so badly that something big had to be done to clean up their mess.

But their screwing it up is really getting hard to tolerate.

[MontanaMama]

11. It is a heartbreak.

I'm self employed. Having REAL insurance for the few years the ACA was in place made it possible to sleep at night.

[Ilsa]

6. Rep. Foxx of NC is trying to water down employee protections

in their employer wellness plans:

H.R.1313 - Preserving Employee Wellness Programs Act

This bill exempts workplace wellness programs from: (1) limitations under the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 on medical examinations and inquiries of employees, (2) the prohibition on collecting genetic information in connection with issuing health insurance, and (3) limitations under the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008 on collecting the genetic information of employees or family members of employees. This exemption applies to workplace wellness programs that comply with limits on rewards for employees participating in the program.

Workplace wellness programs may provide for more favorable treatment of individuals with adverse health factors, such as a disability.

Collection of information about a disease or disorder of a family member as part of a workplace wellness program is not an unlawful acquisition of genetic information about another family member.

It hasn't gotten anywhere yet. I wonder if we could apply it to them if they pass it?

[ismnotwasm]

9. K&R