Employees who decline genetic testing could face penalties under proposed bill

I hesitate to throw out this quote because it may come across as a "hot take" but I think that John Steinbeck said it best:

"Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires."

Another quote I've heard is that "extremists become more extreme, not less, as problems come closer to solutions."

"Socialism" and "extremists" don't really apply but the sentiments do. Unions sprang up in the United States as a counterweight to outright and absolute worker abuse. Things we--those resident in the U.S.--now take as "absolute," like child labor laws and the 40-hour workweek, were earned as a result of those early struggles.

We've had it really good here for really long, comparatively, so I think that a lot of people see these kinds of abuses as "won't happen to me"-ism so they're not interested in sacrificing even a little to ensure that the abuses happen to virtually[0] no one.

Going back to unions, a lot of people I know--in the IT industry, obviously--flatly refuse to recognize that a union could be a good thing because jobs, salaries, and opportunities are all plentiful. We're not "abused" because employers know that we can just hop jobs and recover. (Never mind things like the gaming industry or the "crunch" period or, say, Uber.) Because of the illusion of choice, unions aren't valued. (I say "illusion" because witness what happened in the doldrums of the early 2000s. When every employer, or even a bunch of large employers, pull back at the same time, there is no choice.)

For others, things like unions or some form of collective action or even just "group health care run by the government" are seen as impinging on the basic rights to shoot--metaphor intentionally chosen--our own feet off however we like, consequences be damned because other countries are just wrong and the United States is a Special Snowflake.

Or something like that but maybe with a little less bite.

0 - I say virtually because people will always find a way to take advantage of others but there's a lot to be said for pushing to prevent that as much as possible. America doesn't seem to do that very much.

Given her own lowly origins Virginia Foxx (opposed aid for Katrina, a bill against hate crime, hates gays - nice) you'd think someone like her would be against such forced disclosures. It won't affect her because she is nearly dead but her grandchildren will almost certainly carry defects causing hemoglobin mutations for sickle cell anemia, neurogenetic disorders and have increased risk for chromosomal disorders such as Downs. Republicans voting for this kind of widespread intrusion is like turkeys voting for xmas.

Comparing averages, I agree. Most of India is rural poverty, with few good hospitals. Or, for that matter, few good toilets.

Comparing the places available to me - an upper middle class professional - I strongly prefer India. Spine surgery cost me 1 month of the average Indian software engineer's salary (vs easily 1 year of salary in the US), and quality was equivalent.

My doctor was as good as any in the UK (he was licensed to practice there, in fact), he just came back home for family reasons.

Yeah, I was just having a conversation with someone today about how it never works out in practice. There is no free market, and in anything approaching it, companies simply e.g. collude to keep prices high or make things unnecessarily complex. Look at cell phone plans and what "unlimited" means, for example. Not that the wireless ISP industry is unregulated (far from it), but why not just start your own and fix it? Free market, right? Start a healthcare company and undercut everyone because free market. Start an ISP and take down Comcast, etc.

The point of a business is to make a profit. This is many times at odds with what people actually need to e.g. Stay alive. I'm not sure why many people keep attempting to suggest businesses as a solution to the modern basic needs of humans. They're fundamentally misaligned.

I guess there is still debate around if a modern society should let people suffer and die because they did not generate or inherit enough money to pay for medical care. It saddens me that our baseline of giving a shit about other people in our society is pretty low in America, even though we have far beyond the means to do so. Enough people with enough power here would rather have a few extra % in their shell company bank accounts instead of increasing the standard of living for the people of the society in which they exist.

"A rising tide lifts all boats"

There are many things that started 70 years ago which have long since gone.

So, there must be forces which sustain the US model, where the employer pays for medical insurance.

Also, I fail to see how employers offering medical insurance should make insurance for an individual any more expensive.

So, while I appreciate the sentiment that something is clearly wrong, the two things that you mentioned are not the cause.