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23andMe raises $50M, cuts price to $99, sets goal of 1M genotyped customers

blog.23andme.com

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Re: 23andMe raises $50M, cuts price to $99, sets goal of 1M genotyped customers

#41

Post by martincmartin »

apaprocki wrote: post #24
dsplittgerber wrote: post #16

Is the most obvious question being adressed in any jurisdiction yet? - Do you legally have to disclose your results to any insurance company you already have an existing contract with or prior to any new insurance contract? By chance, I just read a typical life insurance contract and it already stated that if you have undergone a genetic testing, you do have to disclose your results if you enter into a life insurance…

In the US, President Bush signed the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008 which covers these topics. Some relevant parts are available here: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:HR00493 : edit: Specifically, "`(A) IN GENERAL- For purposes of this section, a group health plan, and a health insurance issuer offering group health insurance coverage in connection with a group health plan, may not adj…

Gender is determined genetically, and men and woman have different life expectancies. Does this mean you can't charge men and women different rates (all else being equal)?

Re: 23andMe raises $50M, cuts price to $99, sets goal of 1M genotyped customers

#42

Post by khomenko »

r3demon wrote: post #18

Will they give my genotype information to FBI or CIA? Will they pay damages if information gets stolen? This is not some passwords or account numbers, this is data about real world which can't be changed.

Knowing a little bit about the culture of the company, I hope that they will be transparent about any laws they have to comply with, a la Google Transparency report: http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/removals/government...

To my knowledge, this has not come up yet, but I'm sure it will one day.

Re: 23andMe raises $50M, cuts price to $99, sets goal of 1M genotyped customers

#43

Post by carbocation »

martincmartin wrote: post #41
apaprocki wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US, President Bush signed the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008 which covers these topics. Some relevant parts are available here: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:HR00493 : edit: Specifically, "`(A) IN GENERAL- For purposes of this section, a group health plan, and a health insurance issuer offering group health insurance coverage in connection with a group health plan, may not adj…

Gender is determined genetically, and men and woman have different life expectancies. Does this mean you can't charge men and women different rates (all else being equal)?

Since these companies don't determine your sex by asking you to submit a DNA sample and then surmising your sex via genetic information, but rather by asking you to indicate 'M' or 'F' on a form, genetic protections would be unlikely to be pertinent in the vast majority of cases. At least, that's my nonlawyer layperson read of things.

Re: 23andMe raises $50M, cuts price to $99, sets goal of 1M genotyped customers

#45

Post by jerf »

mhb wrote: post #34
mrtron wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not just privacy...how about human rights? "Sorry sir your infant child is not eligible for that heart operation due to the genetic marker we discovered in your profile."

It's not just privacy or human rights; it's an apparently pervasive misconception about what insurance is. The premise of insurance is that you are insuring against the unknown. If you know that something is the matter with you, then it's no longer insurance. It's getting someone to pay for a treatment that you know you will need. Whether other people should be paying for that is another discussion.

While I think it is important for people to understand the difference between health insurance and a health care plan, there's no actual problem with people banding together and creating health care plans that are no longer, strictly speaking, insurance.

I do think a nontrivial amount of the mess in the health care system is the confusion between the two. People want to create health care plans, but they are trying to make it out of insurance companies, which is going to be problematic at best. Further, people want health care plans but don't want to think about it from an actuarial perspective... because they don't like the answers that come out. That doesn't prevent the answer from coming out, but it does mean we end up trying to build glorious systems that seal themselves away from reality from the get go, and that also can only be problematic at best, total failures at worst.

Re: 23andMe raises $50M, cuts price to $99, sets goal of 1M genotyped customers

#46

Post by apaprocki »

im3w1l wrote: post #40
apaprocki wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US, President Bush signed the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008 which covers these topics. Some relevant parts are available here: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:HR00493 : edit: Specifically, "`(A) IN GENERAL- For purposes of this section, a group health plan, and a health insurance issuer offering group health insurance coverage in connection with a group health plan, may not adj…

I think this isnt a good solution. Imagine the following scenario. A disease hits with p=0.001. To cure it is Very Expensive. Everyone gets insurance that covers it. Now imagine we have a test, that can predict it with certainty. Very soon only those with positive results will want insurance. The insurance against it will become unprofitable and discontinued.

I'm pretty sure the spirit of the law is to prevent those types of situations from happening. Wouldn't this cover your situation?

"`(1) IN GENERAL- A health insurance issuer offering health insurance coverage in the individual market may not, on the basis of genetic information, impose any preexisting condition exclusion (as defined in section 2701(b)(1)(A)) with respect to such coverage."

Re: 23andMe raises $50M, cuts price to $99, sets goal of 1M genotyped customers

#47

Post by tptacek »

mrtron wrote: post #17
apaprocki wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same people who would install driving monitoring devices to lower their auto insurance[1]. Not everyone cares about privacy. [1]: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/25/business/seeking-cheaper-i...

It is not just privacy...how about human rights? "Sorry sir your infant child is not eligible for that heart operation due to the genetic marker we discovered in your profile."

That's not how insurance works now; if you already have insurance for your family, they don't render family members ineligible for therapy based on evidence of predisposition to illness.

And as of 2014, regardless of the nature of the evidence, insurance companies will no longer be allowed to exclude customers based on predisposition to illness or preexisting conditions.

Re: 23andMe raises $50M, cuts price to $99, sets goal of 1M genotyped customers

#48

Post by khomenko »

martincmartin wrote: post #41
apaprocki wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US, President Bush signed the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008 which covers these topics. Some relevant parts are available here: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:HR00493 : edit: Specifically, "`(A) IN GENERAL- For purposes of this section, a group health plan, and a health insurance issuer offering group health insurance coverage in connection with a group health plan, may not adj…

Gender is determined genetically, and men and woman have different life expectancies. Does this mean you can't charge men and women different rates (all else being equal)?

You can. Insurance spreads risk across population pools. You have to carve out those pools somehow, so you use broad variables like age and gender. The problem is genetic information has potential to make the pools too small.
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