[Jacko]

Originally Posted by See Turtle

You'll love this. My health insurer, which shall remain unnamed -- it's Aetna -- sent a memo out informing us that they'd be in the office on May 7th to do "lifestyle counseling." Turns out that what this entails is drawing blood to check cholesterol, triglycerides, what have you. But they're doing this without the usual fasting requirement to create a baseline.

What they're REALLY doing is collecting DNA. By doing this they can, somewhere down the road, do any number of things including denial of treatment based on a genetically pre-existing condition.

Both my attorney and my personal physician have strongly recommended that I refuse to comply. HR suggests that compliance is mandatory and noncompliance may result in them dropping our coverage.

How about that?

Check this out...Congress has voted on prohibiting genetic discrimination right now...

click here

Yesterday the Senate voted unanimously to pass the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA), which after going back to the House for final approval is expected to be signed by President Bush as early as next week. This law will ensure that anyone who gets genetic screening tests will be protected from having that information shared with health insurers or employers. Up until now, women who tested positive for, say, one of the breast cancer genes could be denied insurance coverage or employment based on her predisposition to developing breast cancer years down the road.

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The law will: (a) prohibit the use of genetic information to deny employment or insurance coverage; (b) ensure that genetic test results are kept private; and (c) prevent an insurer from basing eligibility or premiums on genetic information.