Check out article, comments, esp # 51 and # 92 .
Thanks!
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.
Not quite as high as your’s...
“Why would an employer OR the government need this genetic testing from you? To determine whether you’re susceptible to a particular ailment? If so...I’m thinking, hell no and the ferrules should pass a law forbidding employers from demanding this sort of thing as a condition of employment and or keeping employment.”
Fortune has an article on this today as well. Thread:
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3533562/posts
on the road to 666
We see that eye to eye. Your first post explains it all.
MOB technology is here - it’s been here.
Only a matter of time now.
I have healthy DNA & healthy buying habits. Willing to sell DNA.
I think they could have pulled it off in the 1980’s. I was in banking I/T at the time. Seemed pretty straightforward.
Now, we’ve gone so far beyond that.
Each person’s genetic information belongs to them, not to their employer, and legislators who claim otherwise are unfit to hold office.
This is what Soros wants for his $$$$.
NSA, CIA spying on Americans that have done nothing wrong and w/o probable cause warrants.
LEO using asset forfeiture laws to seize folks property...w/o warrants, charges or convictions.
IRS, OSHA, EPA, BLM being weaponized against innocent Americans for speaking their minds.
Swat raids have increased from 15K to over 80K in the last decade.
TSA accosting folks at the airports, bus terminals, ferry landings.
All federal agencies under Obozo armed up to the teeth with military grade vehicles, weapons, armor.
Local law enforcement utilizing surveillance drones which initially they claimed would never be armed...well, guess what?
ALPR’sautomatic lic plate readers stationed throughout cities, roadways that scan hundreds of plates per hour. They know when you leave, they know when you arrive.
National ID act. Requiring states to meet certain standards for their identification. Creating bio-metric databases to include finger prints and digital photos, now being incorporated into facial recognition.
Think I'm spewing a bunch of conspiracy stuff...think again. I see an alarming trend, an erosion of privacy and freedoms.
Years ago, we used to make fun of a guy at the office that tawked about all of this. He seemed like an alarmist, although lucid and sane as anyone.
We're not laughing anymore.
https://www.rutherford.org/
Check out article, comments, esp # 51 and # 92 .
Thanks!
No problem I just wish you would stop.
The question is what other laws have been passed to ensure privacy on genetic testing?
From another post on FR under search word “genetic testing”
which was about the proposal of “Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2005” and after a search re: this topic I found:
Federal Legislation on Genetic Discrimination in Insurance or Employment
https://www.genome.gov/11510230/federal-legislation-on-genetic-discrimination-in-insurance-or-employment/
at the top it says:
This page has been archived and is provided for historical reference purposes only. The content and links are no longer maintained and may now be outdated.
The following appears to be a “study”
The Use OF Genetic Information in Health Insurance: Who Will Be Helped, Who Will Be Harmed and Possible Long-Term Effects
http://paccenter.usc.edu/why/students/orgs/rlsj/assets/docs/10_Riba_Final.pdf
Bump for later...
I have a chapter in “Chaos and Mayhem” about this subject
Pual Ryan is yet again selling out the People to Insurance Companies.
NO! Ryan has put the GOP into big trouble.
Yield. Don’t post and drive.
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