From the New York Times: IBM has declared it’s workers’ genetic makeup to be off limits for all hiring and benefits eligibility. It’s a forward-looking move (and a good PR one, given IBM’s huge stake in bioinformatics.)

We’re fast approaching a world where a probabilistic profile for each person’s predispositions (disease, psychological traits, physical abilities etc.) can be determined at birth. Given this future, we’ll hopefully all be working at IBM. Sucks to be everyone else.

The article notes that Congress is considering such protections for every American. The insurance industry is understandably nervous about this legislation, given the real possibility that those with strong predispositions for hereditary diseases will profile themselves in secret, and then overinsure when they test positive.

The fact is, there is no solution to this problem given our current system. If Americans and those insuring them have opposing incentives, there will be drastic arbitrage opportunities for whomever has more information. With healthcare, this inevitably means either that a) broad swaths of the population will suddenly become uninsurable and thus unable to pay for care or b) there will be a drastic explosion in the cost of insurance premiums.

Interestingly, universal healthcare seems to be the only system where early knowledge of genetic predispositions benefits all involved. I’d be interested to know if anyone can propose an alternative. Without one, it looks like an America with fully socialized medicine is the only one I’d be willing to be a part of in about ten years’ time.

I remember writing a long paper about this in high school. It’s amazing sometimes, how long it takes the future to arrive.

(link found via Slashdot)

Related Posts:

• Government Services are Necessary for Competitive Business (October, 2005)
• Dennis Kucinich (May, 2007)
• Web 2.0 Notes: Tim O’Reilly (April, 2009)
• TripSense (November, 2007)
• WattzOn: Personal Energy Profile (December, 2008)

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 11th, 2005 at 6:54 pm and is filed under politics, privacy, society, technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.