Patients fear DNA testing could hinder Health Insurance

A majority off people in the United States are hesitant to undergo a genetic DNA test because of the fear of negative results which would hinder with their health insurance and also have a negative influence on their employers.

“It’s pretty clear that the public is afraid of taking advantage of genetic testing. If that continues, the future of medicine that we would all like to see happen stands the chance of being dead on arrival,” Dr. Francis S. Collins, director of the National Human Genome Research Institute at the National Institutes of Health was quoted as saying by the New York Times.

The future of medicine will see a lot more DNA tests and people, in general are encouraged to get them done. Such tests help doctors to learn about the genes in the patient’s body thus helping them to calculate if someone is at an elevated risk for a particular disease. But the fear of facing dire economic consequences keeps most people from undergoing DNA testing.

Insurers, however say that they neither customers about genetic test results nor do they ask them to undergo testing. “It’s an anecdotal fear. Our industry is not interested in any way, shape or form in discriminating based on a genetic marker,” said Mohit Ghose, a representative for America’s Health Insurance Plans, whose members provide benefits for 200 million Americans.

A recent study conducted by the Georgetown University Health Policy Institute although presents a different picture. It suggests that 7 out of 92 insurance providers based their decision on the results of genetic tests.

In cases where the genetic make-up of a patient suggests increased probability of diseases, the health insurance is either denied or the patients are charged more.

It goes against the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act, which passed the House of Representatives by a wide margin last year. The bill would forbid insurers from using the genetic information, but it has not yet been fully approved.