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Employees who decline genetic testing could face penalties under proposed bill

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Employees who decline genetic testing could face penalties under proposed bill

#21

Post by randyrand »

If two consenting adults want to make a agreement that includes exchange of their own genetic information, I really don't see the issue.

There are plenty of employers that don't require genetic information. If you don't want to give your genetic information to your employer it's simple, don't work there. Companies that can't hire employees go out of business. This is a self correction 'problem'. We don't need legislation here. Legislation almost always fails edge cases and is not needed for self correcting issues.

Re: Employees who decline genetic testing could face penalties under proposed bill

#22

Post by M_Grey »

apathy wrote: post #3

This is severely fucked. Wellness programs do little or no good but do allow employers to offer incentives for participation. This on the other hand is GATTACA level fuckery. GINA took many years to be put in place; now the proposal put forward will potentially cause people to lose health coverage or their job based on things they cannot control. Potentially their kids, too, since these idiotic "wellness" programs ar…

To be fair, kids born today are pretty fucked for so many reasons. In a way, this kind of dystopian future is averted when you consider the rate of accelerating ocean warming, permafrost melting, etc. It seems likely that all problems short of that which is going to end us, sort of gets subsumed.

All of these social problems are in the context of a failing ecosystem that is being increasingly overtaxed. So... the kids never had a chance.

Re: Employees who decline genetic testing could face penalties under proposed bill

#24

Post by StClaire »

programmarchy wrote: post #20
drawkbox wrote: post #12

We've got to separate healthcare from employers before this goes to far. Companies have no business in your health and we still tie health insurance to employment as a legacy error not a benefit. Many problems arise from healthcare provided from the job such as ageism, culling the sick, making it harder to change jobs or start companies, and losing healthcare as you change jobs, not to mention helping the fixed price…

The history behind our current nonsensical scheme started with FDR capping wages during the great depression, which spurred companies to offer "perks" like healthcare to recruit talent. An example of one market intervention leading to another, and another, ad nauseam. Totally agree that insurance should be decoupled from corporations. The way the "market" is regulated hampers people from working independently or star…

Kaiser of Kaiser Permanente started out making ships during WW2

Re: Employees who decline genetic testing could face penalties under proposed bill

#25

Post by M_Grey »

whiskyant wrote: post #17
apathy wrote: post #3

This is severely fucked. Wellness programs do little or no good but do allow employers to offer incentives for participation. This on the other hand is GATTACA level fuckery. GINA took many years to be put in place; now the proposal put forward will potentially cause people to lose health coverage or their job based on things they cannot control. Potentially their kids, too, since these idiotic "wellness" programs ar…

In a world with mandatory genetic testing, genetic engineering in order to "give your child the best possible start" will definitely ring true.

I wonder what traits we'll program for? Intelligence, maybe, but that's tough to manage and I'd guess that without a complete understanding you'd get a lot of madness. Physical traits will be easier to select for, especially gross ones like size and overall strength. Selecting out congenital illness would be another step.

If you could though, if you had a clear understanding of how Trait A and cluster of genes/epigenetic factors Z were related... then what traits would be valued? Some would want attractive, intelligent offspring. After a while though, I wonder if people would really want that?

If you're the kind of person who wants to control the development of your kid's moral/religious/political/etc. views (and lots of people do) then you're not going to get what you want out of that. You might want to select for traits that are just... like you.

Re: Employees who decline genetic testing could face penalties under proposed bill

#26

Post by yummyfajitas »

drawkbox wrote: post #12

We've got to separate healthcare from employers before this goes to far. Companies have no business in your health and we still tie health insurance to employment as a legacy error not a benefit. Many problems arise from healthcare provided from the job such as ageism, culling the sick, making it harder to change jobs or start companies, and losing healthcare as you change jobs, not to mention helping the fixed price…

In fact, Obamacare (which significantly mitigates the healthcare related costs of changing jobs) had no noticeable effect on startup formation or job separations. I've seen similarly no effect from Romneycare.

https://images.washingtonpost.com/?url=http://img.washington...

https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/images/2010/ted_20100816.png

Do you have any evidence (as opposed to hypothetical anecdote) suggesting this is actually a significant factor?

Re: Employees who decline genetic testing could face penalties under proposed bill

#27

Post by AbrahamParangi »

programmarchy wrote: post #20
drawkbox wrote: post #12

We've got to separate healthcare from employers before this goes to far. Companies have no business in your health and we still tie health insurance to employment as a legacy error not a benefit. Many problems arise from healthcare provided from the job such as ageism, culling the sick, making it harder to change jobs or start companies, and losing healthcare as you change jobs, not to mention helping the fixed price…

The history behind our current nonsensical scheme started with FDR capping wages during the great depression, which spurred companies to offer "perks" like healthcare to recruit talent. An example of one market intervention leading to another, and another, ad nauseam. Totally agree that insurance should be decoupled from corporations. The way the "market" is regulated hampers people from working independently or star…

The specifics of the American healthcare system aside, what leads you to believe that the problem is regulation? By essentially any metric, state provided (single-payer) healthcare is the best-known solution to the healthcare problem. Why is there any reason to believe that there's too much state intervention as opposed to, say, too little?

Re: Employees who decline genetic testing could face penalties under proposed bill

#28

Post by ryanwaggoner »

M_Grey wrote: post #22
apathy wrote: post #3

This is severely fucked. Wellness programs do little or no good but do allow employers to offer incentives for participation. This on the other hand is GATTACA level fuckery. GINA took many years to be put in place; now the proposal put forward will potentially cause people to lose health coverage or their job based on things they cannot control. Potentially their kids, too, since these idiotic "wellness" programs ar…

To be fair, kids born today are pretty fucked for so many reasons. In a way, this kind of dystopian future is averted when you consider the rate of accelerating ocean warming, permafrost melting, etc. It seems likely that all problems short of that which is going to end us, sort of gets subsumed. All of these social problems are in the context of a failing ecosystem that is being increasingly overtaxed. So... the kid…

Is there any credible research that climate change is going to "end us"?

Re: Employees who decline genetic testing could face penalties under proposed bill

#29

Post by goombastic »

The thing with emotionally polarizing bills such as this is that politicians manage to put in other clauses and items we tend to overlook while participating in the battle. We win the issue but we don't notice other things they might have slid in. What an age we live in, cant trust our own representatives. Time to bring back the threat of lynching as a deterrent.

Re: Employees who decline genetic testing could face penalties under proposed bill

#30

Post by brokenmasonjars »

I suppose if this is passed it goes to the many reasons why I enjoy living my life trading with my own funds without the stability of holding a career with an employer. So far no drug tests is pretty much the winner but if genetic testing bill becomes law then I'm pretty sure that tops drug testing. I'm not a fan of background checks and I refuse to give references..but that's easy for me since I'm not applying to jobs. I wish more people collectively refused to participate in the whole reference thing as well. Nonetheless, I suspect this bill will become law and more things to occur to make working for employers even more invasive.
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