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Comment by Retric | Hacker News Reader

ADA already 'prevents' job based discrimination based on DNA.* https://www.ada.gov/

An employer buying DNA on potential job candidates is opening themselves up to a world of litigation for little real gain. Similarly, health insurance may no longer discriminate based on prior health conditions due to the dreaded 'Obama Care'.

We can debate if that's enough, or if these things should be rolled back. However, at a practical level it's currently a non issue.

PS: While most of this is not a significant disability. If people treat DNA condition X as an issue then it fall under "or a person who is perceived by others as having such an impairment. "

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Laws can change. Health insurance can't discriminate now, but what happens if Obamacare was repealed, or if the ADA was amended?

An ugly mess happens. Which is why I think people would be asking themselves those questions before repealing Obamacare / breaking ADA. I think there's a limit to which politicians can pull tricks on people beyond which society's self-preservation instinct kicks in and people vehemently repeal harmful ideas. I doubt you can create a dystopian future with a single vote; it needs to be done very sneakily so that people won't notice until it's too late.

All you need is a big enough crisis to get people to support suspension of the normal checks and balances. That can happen very quickly, in the right circumstances.

Obamacare / ACA didn't set that policy, the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008 was passed almost unanimously by Congress and signed into law by George W Bush. It's a very popular, bipartisan policy.

ACA dated back to 1990, GINA acted as clarification in terms of genetic predisposition to developing a disease in the future (potential problems) and specifically excluded life, disability, or long-term care insurance. Which arguably made the situation worse.

Obamacare prevented insurance companies from treating active genetic disorders as preexisting conditions.

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