Health Insurance and G.I.N.A. - Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act

lindalee1456

New member
I have a question regarding how exactly discrimination is defined within the act itself.

In the USA, employers with 15 or more employees cannot deny employment on the basis of genetic information.

Health insurers cannot deny coverage or set higher premiums based on genetic information.

Now the example.

Let's say that Alice is a healthy US citizen that pays for her individual health insurance plan.

Alice knows about health insurers' actuarial calculations, and she knows that risk is an important factor in determining the monthly premium.

Alice then decides to willingly pay for a genetic test, to have her genome sequenced and studied, and the studies confirm that she is, in fact, a healthy individual without meaningful risks associated to her genome.

Alice then goes to a new insurance company and willingfully discloses her genetic test information to the health insurer, with the objective of stipulating a new contract, with the same amount of coverage as before, but having to pay a slightly lower premium.

Would the new insurance company be able to accept Alice's genetic data, offer her a discounted plan and still be compliant with G.I.N.A.?

Thank you if you've read this far.

EDIT:
Thanks for the quick answers!
 
@lindalee1456 Health status isn't an allowable rating factor for Individual ACA-compliant policies. So no, an insurer could not offer her a discounted plan because it wouldn't be compliant with ACA. Not an expert at GINA, so couldn't comment on if it would be allowed in the absence of ACA.
 
@lindalee1456 The sole factors affecting aca compliant healthcare premiums are age, income, zipcode, tobacco use, and metal tier you pick.

With an employer, those first three tend to not matter if they have a large enough risk pool.

So no.
 
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