Opposition to a congressional bill that would explicitly remove genetic privacy protections from workplace wellness programs grew on Monday, with one of the country’s leading wellness associations calling the proposed changes “punitive.”
The bill, approved by a House committee last week, would eliminate long-standing genetic privacy protections from workplace wellness programs, which are allowed to charge thousands of dollars more in premiums, deductibles, and copayments to employees who do not participate. If passed by the full House and Senate and signed by President Trump, the bill would free employers’ wellness programs from the existing constraints of the landmark Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act.
Although the legislation was championed by some business groups, the Wellness Council of America said Monday that it would oppose the bill.
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This story is DEAD on. I have had a lot of questions that I didn’t get forthcoming about the issue. We are already penalized (or “incentive”) as they say to give up the data.
The better part are what are they going to do with people like me who have issues but who eat healthy and exercise (within my limits)? What about a BMI where you have developed muscle from exercise? They don’t even look at that.
Just another way to control you.
I faint at the site of blood so somebody else would have had to clean up the mess.
So, in other words, it’s not just an invasion of privacy and completely non-cost-effective, it’s also often inaccurate? Aside from that, how did you enjoy the theater, Mrs. Lincoln?
Aetna has already tried testing their employees’ DNA and failed. They claimed it saved money, but as I often say figuratively and now literally, lying is part of wellness vendor DNA. See http://thehealthcareblog.com/blog/2015/12/16/genetic-testing-the-new-frontier-of-wellness-madness/
So where is the privacy that everyone talks about is it just a myth or available to only the fortunate few?