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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

#161

Post by op00to »

randyrand wrote: post #21

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 legisla…

If this law is passed, every insurance company will jack their rates up to make participation in wellness plans all but a requirement for those in the bottom 98%. Your employer will not have a choice of non-GATTACA health plans.

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

#162

Post by inh3 »

tray5 wrote: post #74

I'm sorry to all Americans who may read this and get ruffled, but what the actual fuck is wrong with your political landscape and attitudes towards workers rights? Why don't you have unions? Why do Americans seem to hate unions? Why don't you have an active political party representing workers? Why don't you have an active movement to prevent your employer from becoming overseer of your entire life? All I see day in…

As an American, I believe the fundamental reason you don't see widespread organized resistance against lack of universal healthcare and employer benefiting work legislation is due to the absolute lack of social programs.

Americans cannot organize because of the lack of universal healthcare and work legislation such as "at will employment." Doing such would risk one's job and healthcare. There is no recourse once one is unemployed in the US, especially if one does not have a significant amount of money saved. The government and corporations have our back against the wall.

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

#163

Post by wyager »

mantas wrote: post #145
wyager wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, as I said multiple times, US healthcare is bad. > What you propose will make it more expensive Do you have any evidence for this, or are you just going to drop the claim and walk away? I have some constructive evidence to the contrary, which I've already mentioned; the medical systems of Mexico and India. > The US medical system is currently risk averse Which is one of the many reasons that substantially deregul…

Mexico health care is doing very poorly [1] and they've switched to single-payer euro-style system recently [2]. India is switching to single-payer too [3]. Their current numbers don't look nice either. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_Mexico [2] http://commonhealth.legacy.wbur.org/2012/08/mexican-universa... [3] http://international.commonwealthfund.org/countries/india/

I'm referring to the separate, private medical industry in Mexico, not the horrible state-managed medical system. But you're right; medical systems with heavy government involvement are usually bad.

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

#164

Post by mantas »

wyager wrote: post #163
mantas wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mexico health care is doing very poorly [1] and they've switched to single-payer euro-style system recently [2]. India is switching to single-payer too [3]. Their current numbers don't look nice either. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_Mexico [2] http://commonhealth.legacy.wbur.org/2012/08/mexican-universa... [3] http://international.commonwealthfund.org/countries/india/

I'm referring to the separate, private medical industry in Mexico, not the horrible state-managed medical system. But you're right; medical systems with heavy government involvement are usually bad.

But regular Mexicans don't go to those private hospitals. Actually Mexico is now introducing more gov involvement to fix things. They were much more lax before.

Btw, single-payer health care is going pretty well over there in Europe...

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

#165

Post by squozzer »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #69
goombastic wrote: post #29

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.

> Time to bring back the threat of lynching as a deterrent Please don't do this here.

Yes, we should march into the gas chambers for the good of America. Hail The Donald!

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

#166

Post by eru »

hocuspocus wrote: post #151
eru wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All those benefits have to be paid for. (And the US does have quite a lot of people on long term disability benefits.) Restrictions on firing just make companies less likely to hire. People can negotiate reasonable notice periods, and parental leave, severance pay etc, if they rather want that than more money every month. (But that negotiation / demand only works if the economy is humming along fine. So that is way m…

> People can negotiate reasonable notice periods, and parental leave, severance pay etc, if they rather want that than more money every month. (But that negotiation / demand only works if the economy is humming along fine. So that is way more important.) Vulnerable workers aren't in a position to negotiate anything.

Yes, hence my qualification that it's important the economy be booming.

Alas, government protection doesn't help that much: just like you see greedy landlords in the US haze people who are paying below market rates in rent controlled apartments, you see bosses quietly make people's lives hell in some jobs in Germany.

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

#167

Post by nikdaheratik »

emiliobumachar wrote: post #154
kolinko wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that you cannot have any sort of sensible health insurance on an unregulated market. On an unregulated market, insurers would begin to drop people who get chronically sick, or land in risk groups. Before you can say: "so just forbid dropping insured people" - that's what US initially did. But there was a simple loophole around that - you don't drop people per se. You just start a new insurance company,…

So, how come the car insurance market manages to survive? The industry can dump chronically risky drivers and cars all it wants.

Car insurance is a two tier market and full insurance is not mandatory. So people who are way too risky do without, or they just don't get their own car. You can't do the same thing with your health.

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

#168

Post by nikdaheratik »

wyager wrote: post #139
kolinko wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that you cannot have any sort of sensible health insurance on an unregulated market. On an unregulated market, insurers would begin to drop people who get chronically sick, or land in risk groups. Before you can say: "so just forbid dropping insured people" - that's what US initially did. But there was a simple loophole around that - you don't drop people per se. You just start a new insurance company,…

You don't need industry-specific regulations to prevent insurance fraud; you just need to enforce insurance contracts. If you're worried about becoming a huge medical cost in 20 years, find an insurance company that's willing to go into an n-year preset-rate contract. You might pay a premium corresponding to the increased risk on the part of the insurance company, but if insurance companies were allowed to do this an…

Insurance companies already do something like this. It's called "long term care insurance" and it is entirely separate from normal health insurance which they don't want to place on a multi-year contract because the health care costs themselves are changing too much year-to-year for it to be viable.

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

#169

Post by nikdaheratik »

wyager wrote: post #33
AbrahamParangi wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

> By essentially any metric, state provided (single-payer) healthcare is the best-known solution to the healthcare problem. Except things like, you know, quality of care or satisfaction. Single-payer healthcare beats the American implementation, which is not a high bar to clear. There's a reason medical tourism to Mexico and India is so prevalent. Totally deregulated private doctors seem to kick the ass of state heal…

You're claiming that "totally deregulated private doctors" are better in terms of cost and service than any other system, but you can't give a single instance of a first world system that does this. More than that, you seem to be cherry picking the best of the examples you did give, which is not really helpful since the best in the U.S. (if you have a good insurance plan) is as good or better than these other countries.

India has some good healthcare in the major cities and major problems in the rural areas where many of its people live. Mexico is a public-private hybrid, like Australia and many other countries. Again, you can probably find excellent care in some urban areas which likely cater to medical tourists, but they do not match up to more advanced countries as far as high tech care goes.

If you can't give an apples-to-apples comparison for what you're advocating, then I don't see how helpful your example of "private being better" really is.

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