It Might Soon Be Legal for Employers to Force You Into a Genetic Test

[txradioguy]

@INVAR, I'm interested in what you think of this potential policy of employers and insurers...

[Lando Lincoln]

Listen everyone - I gotta call it a day. 

[Cyber Liberty]

Listen everyone - I gotta call it a day.

Dittos.  TTYL.

[Idaho_Cowboy]

Listen everyone - I gotta call it a day.

A DAY! -There it's been called.
Have a good weekend!

[GrouchoTex]

This is part of the growing effort to encourage wellness, by tying rewards to engagement in wellness activities that will (hopefully) keep employees healthier and health care costs down.   Usually what's at stake is the employee's agreement to take a health risk assessment in exchange for a discount in health insurance premiums.

I disagree.

It is a way to:
(1) Find high risk people to weed them out,remove them from the payroll (and the company insurance).
(2) Making it mandatory to take the "wellness" exams, thereby when you refuse, they can drop you from the insurance or force you to pay more for your coverage than your other co-workers do. Which means the employer will kick in less.

it is a right to privacy issue, which is a conservative issue, and this crazy idea is not conservative at all.

[Cyber Liberty]

I disagree.

It is a way to:
(1) Find high risk people to weed them out,remove them from the payroll (and the company insurance).
(2) Making it mandatory to take the "wellness" exams, thereby when you refuse, they can drop you from the insurance or force you to pay more for your coverage than your other co-workers do. Which means the employer will kick in less.

it is a right to privacy issue, which is a conservative issue, and this crazy idea is not conservative at all.

...which is why it will be portrayed as one.

[Gefn]

I don't like this Idea at all. Smacks of Big Brother.


However, as an adopted child, knowing nothing about my genetic parents I would like this test but I wouldn't want anyone to see the results other than myself.

It would be nice to know if there is anything I need to look for in my family history, like cancer or what not, but it would be my information, not my employers.

[Cyber Liberty]

I don't like this Idea at all. Smacks of Big Brother.


However, as an adopted child, knowing nothing about my genetic parents I would like this test but I wouldn't want anyone to see the results other than myself.

It would be nice to know if there is anything I need to look for in my family history, like cancer or what not, but it would be my information, not my employers.

Generally, if you are willing to pay for the thing yourself you can sign a proviso refusing access to the data to anybody but yourself.  The problem with this is the mention upthread that a genetic test that would help you spot cancer markers and such is still in excess of $20,000.

[Gefn]

Generally, if you are willing to pay for the thing yourself you can sign a proviso refusing access to the data to anybody but yourself.  The problem with this is the mention upthread that a genetic test that would help you spot cancer markers and such is still in excess of $20,000.

I don't have that kind of money. It's ok I've gone my whole life not knowing, it's all good.

[Wingnut]

@INVAR, I'm interested in what you think of this potential policy of employers and insurers...

You are a very bad man!.

I'm out of here.  Meeting the Mrs for a Metamucil Martini down at the Dew Drop Inn.  You all have fun. 

[Cyber Liberty]

I don't have that kind of money. It's ok I've gone my whole life not knowing, it's all good.

Same here.  Mrs. Liberty was considering it, but when we found out the cost it was No Way Jose.

[Gefn]

You are a very bad man!.

I'm out of here.  Meeting the Mrs for a Metamucil Martini down at the Dew Drop Inn.  You all have fun.

Shaken or stirred?

[Cyber Liberty]

Shaken or stirred?

I'd bet stirred.  Shaken would disrupt Wings' cataracts and, uh, his naughty bits.

[Wingnut]

I'd bet stirred.  Shaken would disrupt Wings' cataracts and, uh, his naughty bits.

Correct.  Always stirred. In a tub poured over ice with 2 olives and wave the Vermouth bottle over the glass letting two drops fall gently on the cubes.....

[240B]

Genetic testing would mean flirting with that dreadful "reality" thing, which some States are making illegal.


If I'm a 45 year old bearded male, but I self-identify as a 14 year old Chinese girl, which will the genetic testing report to my employer? Who are they to tell ME that I'm not a woman?, or Chinese?, or Black?, or a giraffe? That's racist, sexist, and homophobic! I see many lawsuits in this.
Genetic reality is infringing on my right to be a delusional weirdo. I'm suing!

[DB]

Seriously, what is the difference in making employment decisions based on a "genetic test" and looking at one's skin color? Neither is something the person being tested has any control of. So if you have "bad" genes or the wrong skin color you are "defective" and must pay more for healthcare and/or are unemployable?

[GrouchoTex]

...which is why it will be portrayed as one.

Sad day.

I read where all the house republicans on the committee voted for it, and all the house democrats voted against it.

The world really is upside down now.

[Jazzhead]

I disagree.

It is a way to:
(1) Find high risk people to weed them out,remove them from the payroll (and the company insurance).
(2) Making it mandatory to take the "wellness" exams, thereby when you refuse, they can drop you from the insurance or force you to pay more for your coverage than your other co-workers do. Which means the employer will kick in less.

No it's not.    There are protections against just that sort of thing.   It's to encourage employees to get information to better their health.   Results of the HRA aren't shared with the employer.  And completing a health risk assessment must be completely voluntary.   So if privacy's your thing,  just decline. 

EDIT:  I just took a quick look at the bill.   It seems clear that the purpose of the bill is to reconcile certain inconsistencies between regulations issued by different federal agencies with respect to three pieces of legislation that impact employee wellness programs (the ACA,  the ADEA and GINA,  the latter addressing genetic testing).   Those inconsistencies have bedeviled employers seeking to implement workplace wellness programs linked to a health plan.   It is, simply stated, consistent with the Trump administration's goal to simplify regulations that ultimately harm economic growth and cost jobs.   

[INVAR]

@INVAR, I'm interested in what you think of this potential policy of employers and insurers...

If a private company wants to mitigate risk factors with this information - then the free market can decide that, and whether or not it crosses into the realm of discrimination - will end up being litigated.

The split second government gets involved in this issue - it will be used as an ugly political weapon.

With genetic markers, the ability to label, target and identify persons based on genetic proclivities - will go well beyond discriminating based on skin color and deviant behavior, to a more medieval bloodline/genetic discrimination that will be excused as 'risk factor' elimination.

Government picking winners and losers - always ruins liberty, and with a weapon like this in their control or pocket - what little remains of liberty will certainly be erased.

[XenaLee]

I disagree.

It is a way to:
(1) Find high risk people to weed them out,remove them from the payroll (and the company insurance).
(2) Making it mandatory to take the "wellness" exams, thereby when you refuse, they can drop you from the insurance or force you to pay more for your coverage than your other co-workers do. Which means the employer will kick in less.

it is a right to privacy issue, which is a conservative issue, and this crazy idea is not conservative at all.

I'm somewhat confused.   It if is currently illegal (supposedly) for employers to discriminate against hiring individuals based on their age....(called age-discrimination hiring)....

then how the hell is this not illegal too? 

[Cyber Liberty]

If a private company wants to mitigate risk factors with this information - then the free market can decide that, and whether or not it crosses into the realm of discrimination - will end up being litigated.

The split second government gets involved in this issue - it will be used as an ugly political weapon.

With genetic markers, the ability to label, target and identify persons based on genetic proclivities - will go well beyond discriminating based on skin color and deviant behavior, to a more medieval bloodline/genetic discrimination that will be excused as 'risk factor' elimination.

Government picking winners and losers - always ruins liberty, and with a weapon like this in their control or pocket - what little remains of liberty will certainly be erased.

That's what I thought.  I think that way too, thanks for the affirmation.

[Cyber Liberty]

I'm somewhat confused.   It if is currently illegal (supposedly) for employers to discriminate against hiring individuals based on their age....(called age-discrimination hiring)....

then how the hell is this not illegal too?

It should be illegal, it would be discrimination by immutable characteristics, like race.

[Lando Lincoln]

If a private company wants to mitigate risk factors with this information - then the free market can decide that, and whether or not it crosses into the realm of discrimination - will end up being litigated.

The split second government gets involved in this issue - it will be used as an ugly political weapon.

With genetic markers, the ability to label, target and identify persons based on genetic proclivities - will go well beyond discriminating based on skin color and deviant behavior, to a more medieval bloodline/genetic discrimination that will be excused as 'risk factor' elimination.

Government picking winners and losers - always ruins liberty, and with a weapon like this in their control or pocket - what little remains of liberty will certainly be erased.

Well thought out and nicely stated.  The slopes are indeed slippery.

[DB]

If a private company wants to mitigate risk factors with this information - then the free market can decide that, and whether or not it crosses into the realm of discrimination - will end up being litigated.

The split second government gets involved in this issue - it will be used as an ugly political weapon.

With genetic markers, the ability to label, target and identify persons based on genetic proclivities - will go well beyond discriminating based on skin color and deviant behavior, to a more medieval bloodline/genetic discrimination that will be excused as 'risk factor' elimination.

Government picking winners and losers - always ruins liberty, and with a weapon like this in their control or pocket - what little remains of liberty will certainly be erased.

I think the question is, how much information are they entitled to. Were does privacy begin and end?

[INVAR]

I think the question is, how much information are they entitled to. Were does privacy begin and end?

In our depraved and wicked culture, the only privacy one is permitted is to engage in deviant sexual behaviors and criminality if you are a liberal Leftist and vote Democrat.

The rest of us are not entitled to any privacy, because as Leftists have been trumpeting now with great fanfare - the plebes in flyover country cannot be trusted with liberty or privacy.  Certainly they say that the last election proves we cannot be trusted to vote either.

Those of us who understand the scriptures recognize we are rapidly arriving at the place and time whereby everyone must be married, thought and deed to the beast - or breathing and making a living will be impossible.

This is just one more tool in such an arsenal of imposing that.