Congress passes bill banning genetic discrimination

There are several key points in the new genetic discrimination testing legislation that you didn’t mention in your news blurb of today. Key points in addition to your info:

(a) legislation covers only HEALTH insurance, excludes long-term care and disability insurance, which arguably could be an even bigger problem in that many genetic conditions disproportionately affect LTC and disability insurance later down the road;

(b) legislation becomes effective 18 months after the President signs it, quite a long time gap for insurance applicants to wait for the law to kick in;

(c) insurers do have a legitimate worry that individuals can go get tested, find out they’re at high risk for a condition, and obtain insurance with the insurance company prohibited from doing anything about it (adverse selection, in other words).

That said, I think that this legislation is overdue, and it would be desirable to extend it to LTC and disability insurance as well.