Genetic discrimination

As far as I'm informed, US lawmakers have recently banned any attempts to calculate insurance fees or pick employees according to their genetic structure, thus outlawing discrimination according to one's gene code.

The logic behind this is obvious: Since nobody has an impact on his distribution of genes, it should be no factor whatsoever in dealing with a person (just like, with the Civil Rights Act, race was banned as a criterion when employing).

While all that sounds fair on first glance, it has its downsides as well: As employers and insurance companies can't sort out potential high-risk customers or employees, the costs for being forced to take increased risks are "socialized". Everybody, then, has to pay higher insurance fees, or might experience more obstacles when looking for a job due to increased reservation of employers.

From a libertarian/free market perspective, this sure is an unjustified intervention into peoples' business activities. If an insurance companies decides it wants to act that way, nobody has the right to bar it from doing so, and so on.

However, do libertarians or statists have the moral high ground on this subject? Doesn't the idea of genetic discrimination remind you of inheritable peonage, since in both cases, children are subject to certain measures and treatments as a result not of their, but of their parents' actions? Is it furthermore justifiable to hold people accountable according to standards they cannot possibly change or alter (to provide an counterexample, smokers may face higher insurance rates as well, but they can just stop smoking for that matter)? And thirdly, if you still believe genetic discrimination is moral, would you have the balls to tell a genetically disadvantaged person to just take one for the team since we can't do anything about it anyway?

Eagerly awaiting your responses.

Sphairon:

However, do libertarians or statists have the moral high ground on this subject?

Libertarians always have the moral high ground, because they respond to it through boycott while the statists respond with force.

Sphairon:

Is it furthermore justifiable to hold people accountable according to standards they cannot possibly change or alter (to provide an counterexample, smokers may face higher insurance rates as well, but they can just stop smoking for that matter)

I think the question you should be asking is "Is it justifiable to hold a gun to someone and force them to respect genetically disadvantaged people?"

Also, it's very easy to quit smoking, as nicotine isn't addicting, right?

Since you are the sole owner of your mind and the thoughts and beliefs you hold no one has the right to force to you act contrary to your beliefs.  Discrimination doesn't deny people any rights but anti-discrimination laws do.  If the State says I cannot discriminate they are in essence telling me that they own my mind and can dictate how I ought to think.  That is a violation of the property right I hold over my mind.

kingmonkey:

Since you are the sole owner of your mind and the thoughts and beliefs you hold no one has the right to force to you act contrary to your beliefs.  Discrimination doesn't deny people any rights but anti-discrimination laws do.  If the State says I cannot discriminate they are in essence telling me that they own my mind and can dictate how I ought to think.  That is a violation of the property right I hold over my mind.

Let alone, they are commiting the very action they oppose in that situation, discrimination.

Provided they obtain the genetic materials non-forcefully, individuals should have the right to take any factors they wish into considering whom to associate with. Whether one can do something about these factors or not is irrelevant, if they genuinely represent a higher risk for the insurance firm. Now, it might be immoral for one to discriminate on such a basis (I'd argue in this case it is moral, as there are non-arbitrary reasons for acting in this manner), but it is definitely not something that ought to be illegal.

-Jon

One should be able to conduct business according to whatever preference one holds, regardless of anything.

A person may not be able to alter or affect his genes, but neither can anyone else affect theirs. Therefore, no one should feel bad about gene preferences, unless the 'discriminated' is willing to accept that he has unpreferable genes; and If a man is willing to admit that he has unpreferable genes, why can't others admit the same thing?

If I want to insure or hire only polka-dotted midgets, that's my business.

Sphairon:

The logic behind this is obvious: Since nobody has an impact on his distribution of genes, it should be no factor whatsoever in dealing with a person

That "logic" is a complete non-sequiteur. There's no connection whatsoever between the premise and the conclusion.

Sphairon:

Is it furthermore justifiable to hold people accountable

Refusing to grant insurance is not a punishment that is based on whether or not you are to blame, it's somebody deciding what to do with their own money.  You don't have a right to insurance.

The law is paradoxical.  Let's assume we have a free market where health insurance companies charge people with "bad" genes more and "good" genes less.  Now what will happen once this law comes into effect?  The insurance companies must assume that everyone has "average" genes.  So the people with bad genes get charged less, but now the people with good genes get charged more.  Either way, you have genetic discrimination.

PeterWellington:

So the people with bad genes get charged less, but now the people with good genes get charged more. 

Which means that the people with good genes will be more likely to leave the system (to essentially self-insure if there are no other options), causing the bad gene people to be over represented in the pool, which means that the medical costs for the pool as a whole will go up, forcing the insurer to raise rates for everyone, causing more good gene people to leave....

Eventually, the price for the bad gene people is now at where it would have been without the law (probbly higher), and the good gene people are left without any insurance at all.  The market got to the same pricing conclusions it would have without the law, the law's only effect was to remove insurance for the good gene people. Typical class-warfare result, don't help the "underpriveledged", just screw the "overpriveledged".

On the other hand, the insurance companies can only take their discrimination so far.  Insurance is a statistical game, pooling risk across a variety of people.  Should they get too precise in their discrimination, they introduce a higher level of certainty into the outcome, undermining the idea of pooled risk, bringing permium costs closer to actual medical costs for each individual person (as opposed to them being in line in the aggregate, but with a wide variance for individuals) and eventually obviating their entire industry when people realize the insurance companies are providing no useful service, but still collecting a profit.

Insurance companies make money by taking on risk that individuals don't want to be exposed to.  If their own policies seek to pre-determine individual risk as accurately as possible, it ceases to be risk, and they cease to have a reason to exist.

Sphairon:

Doesn't the idea of genetic discrimination remind you of inheritable peonage, since in both cases, children are subject to certain measures and treatments as a result not of their, but of their parents' actions?

We genetically discriminate every single day with or without this bill.  Tiger Woods would beat the crap out of me at golf in good part to his genetic makeup.  We weed people out of medical school because of their brains, which is genetic makeup.  I know I don't want an idiot operating on me, designing an airplane or any other number of things, and that is mostly due to genetics. 

Even if genetic discrimination is wrong (an opinion) the only way to enforce said opinion is to use a gun.

Business should be able to select their employs and customers on whatever bases they want but i don't think that the practice of selecting people based on their genes would be generalized since having "good genes" is no indication that someone is a hard worker, or a loyal employee, or that someone is not a drug addict, or that someone lives a healthy lifestyle(and therefore is less risky to be ensured).

Genes are not everything, the play a role in our life but they are not determinant for the outcome of our lives , there are tons of other factors that are important and most of them can't be measured and I think that most people realizes that.

I wrote a daily article on this law.