A guest post at the Intersection by Alice Popejoy argues that universal health care would remove any incentives for genetic discrimination, even more so than the current US health care overhaul does as "health costs remain the responsibility of insurance companies and employers." Popejoy adds that DNA can be legally, and easily, obtained from a person's cup or keyboard and that "employers and insurance companies have an incentive to find out the 'flaws' in your genetic code, and use that knowledge to try to save money." A few people note in the comments that the US Genetic Nondiscrimination Act outlaws some gene-based discrimination related to employment and health insurance. Lovejoy says that GINA "was a great first step" and while it forbids employers and insurance companies to ask for the results of a genetic test, "it does not prevent those same entities from obtaining DNA off a coffee cup or a piece of hair." Universal health care, she says, would remove those incentives to save money.
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