DNA confirmation vs Diagnosis of Genetic Disorder. Is it legal to deny insurance in latter?

There are several laws right now that say you cant deny or drop or increase charges for someone who is found to have a genetic disorder that is discovered through genetic testing....


However, there are all kinds of genetic diseases that are diagnosed wihout specific DNA tests, but rather, regular old bloodwork, ultra sounds, even tape measures.....so is it legal for these people to be discriminated against by insurance companies?

If insurance companies can do this - could you give me a short version why (or point me in a direction to look?)

I have to write a paper about genetics\ethics\insurance.....and I asked my law prof - and he didn't know....(this isn't may background, I'm taking it as an elective)

HELP!?!?!?!

Thanks a bunch all -
Be well

Maybe you will find this PDF helpful in your research on this subject.

http://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/handbook/testing....

http://www.udel.edu/chem/C465/senior/fal...

http://genes-r-us.uthscsa.edu/resources/...

The answer as far as I can tell from what you have given me? It depends. They law is trying to cover people with genetic disorders from being dropped from an insurance company. However, the wording of the statute says "genetic testing."

Which means...it really depends on how the state courts are going to interpret the statutes. The court could say that the statute says only those discovered by genetic tests so only those are covered. The court could interpret genetic tests to encompass all of the methods that you mentions as primative genetic tests. Or it could look at the purpose behind the statute and say that it was meant to protect people with genetic disorders from being dropped by insurance companies and therefore the method in which it is discovered doesn't matter as much.

What I would do: (1) to a web search to find states that have those types of laws and print off the exact texts of the laws (can usually be found on state's website -- web searches generally easiest way to find statutes in my experience if you don't have access to books with statutes). (2) go to your law library and ask them: one, if you have access to the annotated statutes of that state (annotated statutes list cases interpreting the statute) or two, if you have access to the cases of that state (in which case, you search by topic through the index and hope you land on something). Or three, pray that you have access to Lexis or Westlaw and that they can give you a had with using it. Tell them your dilemma and they should be able to help you. If you school does not have a law library, many clerks of court have them and the librarians there can aid you as well.

Likely, there won't be any cases if the statutes are really new. In which case, you can turn to law reviews or law summaries like AmJur or ALR to see if they lend any guidance.

I'm not sure that I would want to write a paper on this subject -- will be lot of work and will take a lot of filling in the gaps and exploring hypotheticals.