The Economist recently reviewed the rapidly growing field of individualized genetic testing and personalized medicine. It covered a lot of the usual questions about privacy, but the article is primarily about health insurance. The short story: the promise of genetic medicine has insurance companies a little worried. Why? They figure that future legislation will prevent them from offering coverage on the basis of a person’s genes (or maybe even family history), but it won’t prevent people from opting in or out of insurance based on their gene-forecasted future — and that will upset the risk pools. This projected situation even leads one insurance executive to speculate that personalized medicine will necessarily result in some kind of universal or compulsory healthcare system.
Think about that for a second: universal healthcare could come to be in this country not for moral or social reasons, but rather to save… insurance companies.
-Greg Dahlmann