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Posted on 03/10/2017 11:46:58 AM PST by bamahead
Say your employer wants you to get a genetic test. You politely decline because you consider it a gross infringement of privacy. Well, too bad—your monthly health insurance payments just spiked 30%.
This could be the reality under HR 1313, the Preserving Employee Wellness Programs Act, a House GOP-sponsored bill that would essentially allow companies with workplace wellness programs to demand your genetic information (or force you to pay a big penalty).
The legislation has now passed a House committee on a straight party line vote, reports STAT News, with all 22 Republicans unified in support against 17 Democratic detractors. The bill is expected to be latched on to a second Obamacare-related legislative effort that will be a followup to the main GOP health care plan now working its way through Congress.
Currently, employers with ostensibly voluntary workplace wellness programs can force their workers to pay 30% more (and up to 50% more for smokers) toward their company-provided health insurance benefits if they choose not to participate - provisions that were actually passed as a part of Obamacare and then cemented by the Obama administration's Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). The wellness programs typically include basic biometric screenings, access to gym memberships, and health care-related questionnaires.
(Excerpt) Read more at fortune.com ...
Whoever was the brains behind this ought to be first in line for a genetic test and then they undergo a mental test.
I want all elected officials to be forced to take an IQ test, with all results made public.
I’m about fed up with the constant “1984” stuff being pushed. I don’t care who does it; Big Government or Big Business or both... the result is the same.
Someone is being paid by testing company. Just can fix Obamacare out can do all of this stuff.
Technology is making all this possible, if not inevitable. Everything from sports to the right to privacy is being affected. Do we have the wisdom or ability to control it? Mary Shelley was perhaps more prescient than we thought.
I want all elected officials to be forced to take an IQ test, with all results made public.
= = =
Hope you are running a 64-bit computer.
In order to handle very, very small numbers.
Insanity. This is not “voluntary” when you are punished by hundreds or thousands of dollars to decline the test.
Shades of Gattica.
PEWP? The PEWP Act? Are they serious?
I assume this means DNA testing, and of course the information will be available to law enforcement so that if you left genetic material at a crime scene it may be found and compared so that you are incriminated, even if you were not at the scene when the crime was committed.
Like all health “tyrannies” they start w/smokers.
Actually, in this case, smokers and obese.
Under commie care, smokers and obese are not considered “well” and can get a surcharge.
Some employers, including some state governments, place surcharges on the insurance premium for smokers and obese.
Not many have a problem w/that because, as far as most are concerned, the smokers and obese deserve it.
Now that that’s settled, it’s time to move on to discriminate on a health and lifestyle basis in other regards.
Sort of like how the tobacco excise tax is growing into fat and sugar taxes.
As the song goes, “First they came for the communists...”
Once you’ve open the door to discriminate in this fashion for smokers and obese, it’s pretty hard to defend NOT doing for any other risk pool.
Only a matter of time.
GOPe congresswoman given marching orders from the Chamber of Crony Capitalism and The Club for Deep State Growth and she gives the straight arm salute and yells “Jawohl mein Führers!”
And genetic tests too, as a condition for office.
Actually, I’d think it violates the 14th Amendment.
Oh, good, another statist bill to invade our privacy.
Yeah, like the income tax.
Don’t worry, just as AIDS prompted all kinds of privacy safeguards in the past, it can continue to do so in the future. Who would take on the medical bills of an AIDS patient employee, in light of the massive costs of the medications we’re always told about?
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