371–380 of 458 posts
https://www.23andme.com/en-int/about/consent/
"If your data are associated with your identity, they may be made public or released to insurance companies, which could have a negative effect on your ability to obtain insurance coverage."
This is about data breach but within, they acknowlidge the potential usability of those data for insurance bussiness. I wonder who would buy them if they go down...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Certainly, they're different. I'm pretty confident about a company's profit motive; not so much with the government which changes every few years. I don't like a company having it (and will never take such a test), but like the government even less. The government's the one that can bust down my door at 3 AM, haul me away, and shoot me if I resist.
A company's direction is going to be aligned with the owners/shareholders goal, which isn't always but in most cases is profit. At least we know that. Government? Who knows - whatever behavior emerges when you get a bunch of self promotors, egotists and idealists to compete amongst each other for whatever it is that each is individually competing for.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The solution to that is to abolish or neuter your insurance companies like the us in the rest of the world did. The fact that a private for-profit company decides if you live or die is absurd.
Last I checked, medical and life insurance is a thing everywhere else in the world as well. While a public healthcare system will pay for your treatment, it will not pay for the loss of earnings/business during your stay in the hospital and convalescence, nor will it pay you if you end up with a permanent disability (social security may cover a pittance of the latter).
I considered that a low risk because I've posted enough anti-Brexit stuff that I'm probably on some fascist's list of enemies-of-the-people already.
Well, there are only so many people interested in the product (ie. not creeped by it), and they're only going to use it once... 2010s will be remember as the "wonky startup" decade, between this, theranos, uber &co.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Considering the types of cars that surgeons drive, I'd say yes, quite lucrative.
It's surgery that pays well, it doesn't mean it's all from a single procedure.
Not always, possibly not most, but many.
> Wojcicki has theories Think the obvious one is that the results are shared and whether someone is a criminal or not (or will be one in the future), people are not particularly comfortable with sharing to parties they didn't initially trust it to for the purposes they trusted it for. Anecdotally, I bought a 23andme kit (just the genealogy one) but never submitted it because the labeling was to send it to the lab in…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Last I checked, medical and life insurance is a thing everywhere else in the world as well. While a public healthcare system will pay for your treatment, it will not pay for the loss of earnings/business during your stay in the hospital and convalescence, nor will it pay you if you end up with a permanent disability (social security may cover a pittance of the latter).
That's why I also stuck the word "neuter" in there. It's not difficult to regulate what insurance companies are allowed to consider. Data brokerage can also be regulated (the GDPR would not allow 23andme to sell genetic data to insurance companies without strict opt-in)
That's true. But there's a different issue and the very reason why I would never do such testing.
An insurance company cannot enforce a genetic test on you in order to write a policy. What they can and will do, however, is ask you in the questionaire for such a policy if you did a genetic test and if yes they would oblige you to share the results before writing a policy.
The problem here is you can't lie. If you did a test and you deny it and it's proven later that you lied the insurance will refuse coverage.
So it's in your best interest not to get tested at all.
My understanding is that it's very different in the US. Such data is insanely valuable to insurers and that directly translates to the prices they're willing to pay for it.
Unethical? Sure as hell. Illegal? Probably not without a strong legal framework.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Court..? AFAIK insurance companies in the US are free to model and quote you as they wish with the information they can legally get
Actually, they are expressly prohibited from using your genetic information to make decisions about your coverage. It's the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA) [1], where: > ... health insurers may not use genetic information to make eligibility, coverage, underwriting or premium-setting decisions. However, it doesn't apply to all insurance: > It does not cover long-term care insurance, life insurance, o…