Posted on 03/10/2017 8:10:21 AM PST by MarchonDC09122009
House GOP would let employers demand workers' genetic test results
https://www.statnews.com/2017/03/10/workplace-wellness-genetic-testing/
House Republicans would let employers demand workers’ genetic test results
By Sharon Begley @sxbegle
March 10, 2017
A little-noticed bill moving through Congress would allow companies to require employees to undergo genetic testing or risk paying a penalty of thousands of dollars, and would let employers see that genetic and other health information.
Giving employers such power is now prohibited by legislation including the 2008 genetic privacy and nondiscrimination law known as GINA. The new bill gets around that landmark law by stating explicitly that GINA and other protections do not apply when genetic tests are part of a “workplace wellness” program.
The bill, HR 1313, was approved by a House committee on Wednesday, with all 22 Republicans supporting it and all 17 Democrats opposed. It has been overshadowed by the debate over the House GOP proposal to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, but the genetic testing bill is expected to be folded into a second ACA-related measure containing a grab-bag of provisions that do not affect federal spending, as the main bill does.
“What this bill would do is completely take away the protections of existing laws,” said Jennifer Mathis, director of policy and legal advocacy at the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, a civil rights group. In particular, privacy and other protections for genetic and health information in GINA and the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act “would be pretty much eviscerated,” she said.
Employers say they need the changes because those two landmark laws are “not aligned in a consistent manner” with laws about workplace wellness programs, as an employer group said in congressional testimony last week.
Top wellness award goes to workplace where many health measures got worse
Employers got virtually everything they wanted for their workplace wellness programs during the Obama administration. The ACA allowed them to charge employees 30 percent, and possibly 50 percent, more for health insurance if they declined to participate in the “voluntary” programs, which typically include cholesterol and other screenings; health questionnaires that ask about personal habits, including plans to get pregnant; and sometimes weight loss and smoking cessation classes. And in rules that Obama’s Equal Employment Opportunity Commission issued last year, a workplace wellness program counts as “voluntary” even if workers have to pay thousands of dollars more in premiums and deductibles if they don’t participate.
Despite those wins, the business community chafed at what it saw as the last obstacles to unfettered implementation of wellness programs: the genetic information and the disabilities laws. Both measures, according to congressional testimony last week by the American Benefits Council, “put at risk the availability and effectiveness of workplace wellness programs,” depriving employees of benefits like “improved health and productivity.” The council represents Fortune 500 companies and other large employers that provide employee benefits. It did not immediately respond to questions about how lack of access to genetic information hampers wellness programs.
Rigorous studies by researchers not tied to the $8 billion wellness industry have shown that the programs improve employee health little if at all. An industry group recently concluded that they save so little on medical costs that, on average, the programs lose money. But employers continue to embrace them, partly as a way to shift more health care costs to workers, including by penalizing them financially.
Do workplace wellness programs improve employees’ health?
The 2008 genetic law prohibits a group health plan — the kind employers have — from asking, let alone requiring, someone to undergo a genetic test. It also prohibits that specifically for “underwriting purposes,” which is where wellness programs come in. “Underwriting purposes” includes basing insurance deductibles, rebates, rewards, or other financial incentives on completing a health risk assessment or health screenings. In addition, any genetic information can be provided to the employer only in a de-identified, aggregated form, rather than in a way that reveals which individual has which genetic profile.
There is a big exception, however: As long as employers make providing genetic information “voluntary,” they can ask employees for it. Under the House bill, none of the protections for health and genetic information provided by GINA or the disabilities law would apply to workplace wellness programs as long as they complied with the ACA’s very limited requirements for the programs. As a result, employers could demand that employees undergo genetic testing and health screenings.
While the information returned to employers would not include workers’ names, it’s not difficult, especially in a small company, to match a genetic profile with the individual.
That “would undermine fundamentally the privacy provisions” of those laws,” said Nancy Cox, president of the American Society of Human Genetics, in a letter to the House Committee on Education and the Workforce the day before it approved the bill. “It would allow employers to ask employees invasive questions about … genetic tests they and their families have undergone” and “to impose stiff financial penalties on employees who choose to keep such information private, thus empowering employers to coerce their employees” into providing their genetic information.
If an employer has a wellness program but does not sponsor health insurance, rather than increasing insurance premiums, the employer could dock the paychecks of workers who don’t participate.
The privacy concerns also arise from how workplace wellness programs work. Employers, especially large ones, generally hire outside companies to run them. These companies are largely unregulated, and they are allowed to see genetic test results with employee names.
They sometimes sell the health information they collect from employees. As a result, employees get unexpected pitches for everything from weight-loss programs to running shoes, thanks to countless strangers poring over their health and genetic information.
Sharon Begley can be reached at sharon.begley@statnews.com Follow Sharon on Twitter @sxbegle
Privacy Policy | Comment Policy Steve March 10, 2017 at 8:18 am I’m sorry, but why do we need someone’s genetic information in order to execute a workplace wellness program? What if the employee is screened and determined to have a variant that has a high likelihood of causing cancer in the near future.
The employer would know that would increase their payouts, so they could find a way to terminate the employee.
There are all sorts of ethical dilemmas that could play out if employers have the genetic information of their employees.
You are so right! The only people HIPAA prevents from easily acquiring medical records is the patient him/herself.
I work in a hospital lab and I am not allowed to perform or view the results of any of my own lab tests or my family members' without going to medical records or signing up for electronic medical records through your providers office, which is often burdensome and more difficult for older persons who are not computer savvy.
No sir.
It’s unadulterated bullshit.
Save the excrement stuff for polite company.
Anyone supporting this needs 9 grams in the back of their head and their body dumped in North Korea.
You’ve summed this up perfectly.
Drudge has been made aware of this indecent GOPe betrayal.
Those cards that store force customers to use to get sale items and track purchases are an invasion of privacy. Not only do they sell your consumer information to other businesses, but they also have given it to LEO in crime investigations. I would not doubt for one minute that they would hand it over to insurance companies or the government to see if tobacco, alcohol, OTC drugs, and so called unhealthy foods are purchased.
Fake news? If not, GTHGOPee!
My genetics (Congress) and genitals (TSA) are none of your gosh darned business. Go away!!
Share the cards with as many people as possible, swap them around. You all get the benefits and savings but the collected data is useless.
As someone in healthcare data-mining, I concur 100% with your post.
I should correct that to say ‘posts’ on how this information is NEVER private and it only makes it harder for the patient/employee. This is a total sell out and travesty. Any time anyone else is involved with paying something for you or making decisions for you, you are giving away your power and privacy.
Show me a SINGLE Conservative idea in this bill!
The GOP establishment prove yet again they are no friend of freedom loving conservative minded citizens. This Brave New World bill an Absolute privacy breaching Showstopper! The Republicans we helped sweep into victory approve of employers demanding your genetic data.
Oh good grief! Come on down off your high horse.
Just... slippery slope....
Does he even know about it, and what is his opinion of it?
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