Stat News notes another very important health policy bill that is not PPACA repeal but it could create massive problems in the labor market.
bill moving through Congress would allow companies to require employees to undergo genetic testing or risk paying a penalty of thousands of dollars…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.
Right now, genetic information can not be requested nor required by an employer. This is because of GINA. GINA is a very important and under discussed law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of genetics.
Under Title II of GINA, it is illegal to discriminate against employees or applicants because of genetic information. Title II of GINA prohibits the use of genetic information in making employment decisions, restricts employers and other entities covered by Title II (employment agencies, labor organizations and joint labor-management training and apprenticeship programs – referred to as “covered entities”) from requesting, requiring or purchasing genetic information, and strictly limits the disclosure of genetic information.
What this House bill would do is allow genetic testing to be part of the “wellness” programs. Current law and regulation from the Obama administration allows for wellness programs to be “voluntary” even if non-participation costs someone thousands of dollars in increased premiums or deductibles. General “Wellness” programs don’t move the needle on costs nor health. The only ones that work are specific and targeted programs for certain high cost chronic conditions that are amenable to management.
So employers would gain two significant pieces of information. The first would be if people elect to participate. They would get genetic profiles with highly probable high cost diseases flagged. The other, and probably far more dangerous to people would be if they elect not to participate. If the cost of non-participation is high, that is a very valuable signal that the non-participating person has a damn good reason to not participate. And now they have demonstrated that they are “not a team player” which is really a proxy for a high likelihood of having a high probability of having a high cost genetically influenced condition. So people with genetic conditions will either not be hired or hired at lower wages than they otherwise would have received as their employers and thus their insurers now know with less uncertainty future medical expense obligations.