Comments on: Insurance Fears and Genetic Testing http://spittoon.23andme.com/2008/03/04/insurance-fears-and-genetic-testing/ A receptacle for genetic knowledge. Fri, 05 Dec 2008 02:58:10 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6 By: Subho http://spittoon.23andme.com/2008/03/04/insurance-fears-and-genetic-testing/#comment-137 Subho Thu, 06 Mar 2008 18:47:41 +0000 http://spittoon.23andme.com/2008/03/04/insurance-fears-and-genetic-testing/#comment-137 Well, I think that access to genetic information would be scary (or attractive) to both patients and insurers. If an insurer gets a hand on the patient's information, the patient might worry whether his insurance would be in trouble. On the other hand, if the patient gets access to the information, and not the insurer, the patient can buy a big insurance in time, putting the insurer at odd. Now that sequencing gets cheaper, genetic information would be abundant in the coming days. But I don't see a problem there. The car-insurance does depend on the driving history, age and experience of the driver (at least in Europe), much like the genetic make-up and disease-history of a person. Well, I think that access to genetic information would be scary (or attractive) to both patients and insurers. If an insurer gets a hand on the patient’s information, the patient might worry whether his insurance would be in trouble. On the other hand, if the patient gets access to the information, and not the insurer, the patient can buy a big insurance in time, putting the insurer at odd.

Now that sequencing gets cheaper, genetic information would be abundant in the coming days. But I don’t see a problem there. The car-insurance does depend on the driving history, age and experience of the driver (at least in Europe), much like the genetic make-up and disease-history of a person.

]]>