Among employers and legal experts, debate is ongoing about whether a new law to restrict employers’ and insurers’ use of genetic information is a necessary protection against discrimination or just a hindrance to business efforts to cut health care costs.
The federal law, called the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act, went into effect last year. It prohibits health insurers and employers from using genetic information to determine insurance coverage or rates, or to make hiring, firing and promotion decisions.
Insurers and employers also are prohibited generally from using incentives to encourage workers to take health risk assessments that ask about genetic tests or family medical history.
PDF: GINA document
Paul Lombardo, a law professor at Georgia State University in Atlanta, said the law applies some much-needed consistency across a patchwork of state-level genetic discrimination laws. About 45 states have laws related to genetic discrimination, he said.