A handful of firms are offering employees free or subsidized tests for genetic markers associated with metabolism, weight gain and overeating, while companies such as Visa Inc., Slack Technologies Inc., Instacart Inc. recently began offering workers subsidized tests for genetic mutations linked to breast and ovarian cancer.
The programs provide employees with potentially life-saving information and offer counseling and coaching to prevent health problems down the road, benefits managers say.
Screening for genetic markers linked to obesity is the latest front in companies’ war on workers’ weight woes.
Obesity-related conditions such as Type 2 diabetes comprise a large share of overall health-care costs, estimated to run more than $12,000 a worker this year, according to a recent survey from Towers Watson and the National Business Group on Health.
Employers are hoping to help bend the cost curve—and make their workers healthier—by more aggressively targeting obesity and coaxing workers to lose weight.
Fortunately, none of that information ever will be used against the interests of workers, nor will any worker face pressure, explicit or implicit, to submit to such a test…
The story is here, here is another path in.
Wouldn’t it be easier to just keep doing what they do now in Silicon Valley to keep down health and labor costs? Fire the Americans when they hit age 45 and replace them with H-1Bs?
Yeah, I hate it when the most qualified applicant gets the job!
What could possibly give you the impression that’s what’s occurring?
Qualified at willingness to work for less money.
I don’t think that’s exactly it, but it’s closer.
It’s “twice as many qualified applicants in the pool, so everybody gets a lower offer.” I’ve never been somewhere where the H1Bs were given lower offers, but I’ve been places where we’d be giving everyone a higher offer if we had to raise our yield in a smaller qualified pool.
There’s this wacky concept called “supply & demand,” but of course doesn’t apply to anything having to do with immigration.
It’s funny how Mark Zuckerberg doesn’t understand that supply & demand are suspended when it comes to immigration because he keeps using his money to lobby for more H-1B visas. What a maroon!
Yeah, blog commenters know how to run a software company much better than stupid CEOs.
In this case, Axa, you are correct:
http://dealbreaker.com/2015/09/nyu-stern-professor-marissa-mayer-would-be-so-fired-if-it-werent-for-her-pesky-fully-occupied-uterus/
http://www.ibtimes.com/new-book-slams-yahoo-ceo-marissa-mayer-says-she-no-steve-jobs-1765206
http://millennialceo.com/leadership/dear-marissa-mayer-ruining-rest/
Predictive genetic tests for multifactorial diseases like Type II diabetes aren’t very predictive anyways. Waste of time by the company.
“Fortunately, none of that information ever will be used against the interests of workers, nor will any worker face pressure, explicit or implicit, to submit to such a test”
Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA) prohibits employers from requiring genetic information or from using it to make dismissal or hiring decisions.
ginahelp.org
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_Information_Nondiscrimination_Act
Don’t worry, I’m sure that Prof. Cowen considers such things to be just a road bump in the steps needed to be taken towards a much better world. After all, those first designer babies will need to be able to demonstrate their paid for superiority somehow, and testing would be a good way to do it.
Certainly easier than requiring some sort of ID for such designed superiority in an age where average is over.
If you’ve misread tyler’s comment this badly, you should be on another blog.
GINA is a good first step. But I’m skeptical about how well it’s going to hold up in the real world.
I expect genetic information to be about as easy to keep under control as naked selfies. Which is terrifying. If an employer catches wind of your genetic profile — either as a result of tests you did yourself, or tests that were done on your cast-off genetic material without your consent, or as a result of the genetic information of your relatives — how are they going to firewall that information away from their HR decisions?
If employers are firing people based on their Facebook photos, I can guarantee you they will fire people on the basis of unfavourable genetic information that gets leaked onto the internet.
Aha. Take your own coffee mug to work and take it home again at night to wash. Never use a company canteen. This is going to be grim for people with paranoid tendencies.
Gattaca taught us how.
What if genetic testing were to reveal that someone claiming a particular racial status, and the privileges that go with it, were a fake? What then?
The programs provide employees with potentially life-saving information and offer counseling and coaching to prevent health problems down the road, benefits managers say.
Yeah. And if you believe that I have a bridge to sell you. Obviously the sole aim of such programs is to identify people with potentially expensive health conditions so that they can be fired for some other reason.
The rights and wrongs of that are another argument but it is the argument we should be having. Not pretending that the intent is to help. That is the same corporate bullsh!t last seen coming from George Clooney in Up In The Air.
I would also be very concerned about the possibility that it would eventually be used to fire people for other reasons, but so long as that information cannot be disclosed to the insurers then it is not possible for it to impact insurance rates.
It doesn’t need to be disclosed to insurers. Insurers could simply offer better rates to companies that had certain policies in place.
Or the insurance companies could just offer better rates to companies with fewer people with expensive conditions that the genetic tests would predict. Just in case some company, somehow, managed to find some way to have fewer of those kinds of employees by some remarkable run of good luck.
I can’t wait to see the first lawsuit for genetic discrimination.
There have been lawsuits, such as EEOC v. Founders Pavilion, Inc.
http://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/newsroom/release/1-13-14.cfm
This take seems immensely off-base, at least based on these early adopter companies. A company like Slack has approximately zero interest in reducing costs by breaking employment law, and an immense motivation to hire star employees and keep them happy. If Wal-Mart or GM were offering this benefit, I would be much more skeptical
“Fortunately, none of that information ever will be used against the interests of workers, nor will any worker face pressure, explicit or implicit, to submit to such a test…” Tyler has a sense of humour
Not sure if he’s just feeling sassy today, or if we may be in for a “Tyrone” post on this in the near-future.
“Fathers shall not be put to death for their sons, nor shall sons be put to death for their fathers; everyone shall be put to death for his own sin.” Deuteronomy 24:16. But then there’s this: “You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, and on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me.” Deuteronomy 5:9. God must have been an economist, a two-handed economist.
Diabetes is a big concern. Cancer highest incidence rate is around 65 years old. Most of people with diabetes get the diagnostic around 45-50 years old. Diabetes affects workers, cancer affects mostly retired people.
The icky situation is that the “diabetes prevention program” is not launched by public health but by employers. The idea is not bad, but there’s an interest conflict.
No, what’s icky is that anyone thinks that a diabetes prevention program launched by the government would not be icky.
In both cases, it depends a lot what the program entails. At one end, you’ve got (say) free testing and subsidized healthy snacks in the break room, at the other you’ve got an ultimatum that you’ll be fired if you don’t lose 40 lbs this year, or a ban on soft drinks.
Cigarettes are not banned, just taxed. That’s the worst the government can do. I think being under stress in the job for a gene test result is much worse that any tax.
No, I’m pretty sure the government can also ban substances that they think are bad for you, such as cocaine or morphine or marijuana.
Why?
There is a lot to unpack here:
1) Why is this not done at arm’s length, via insurance companies? Or is it? Is a “wellness company” also arm’s length?
2) If your employer pays your insurance (or wellness company), and they offer genetic counseling, is that OK?
I would think so, write a low to lockbox information at HMOs etc, and then let them get on with providing care.
isn’t the philosophically consistent libertarian answer to this ’employers should be able to ask anything of their employees; if the demands are too onerous the employer will not be able to hire or retain staff’?
First, I watched a company try to fire my father for having Type I diabetes. It took having the union guys go down there and “educate” the corporate office on why they weren’t going to be allowed to break the law like that.
Second, as someone with Type I diabetes, I’ve always hated Type II people. Seems to me you have a duty as a human being to not eat yourself into diabetes. Since 90% of diabetes is Type II our disease state is mostly managed based on optimizing for Type II patients (which basically amount to PUT DOWN THE POTATO CHIPS) and often isn’t remotely useful to someone like me. I worry that my own care will one day be curtailed by insurance in order to contain the costs of Type II.
They should rename “Type 2” diabetes in the Obese as something else. Like “Obesity”.
Not to worry, no one has access to your genetic test results besides you or any one you designate. Probably everyone has the benefit of genetic counseling, and the report of that session is yours alone as well.
As suggested, some genetic testing is soft science or somewhat ‘recreational’, such that medical decision making, should be done in the context of working with a credentialled medical professional with expertise in genetics or with a board certified genetic counselor. There are some benefits to reap from personalized medicine if properly done, so don’t be too quick to dismiss, but keep a discerning eye.
S. Bonnie Liebers MS LCGC\ Licensed Certified Genetic Counselor
http://www.geneticcounselingservices.com
Maybe if our health care insurance system wasn’t inextricably tied to our employers, this wouldn’t be as much of a problem. That’s not to say a government sponsorship of the system would be notably better, but maybe they would have to be at least much more transparent with privacy rights. Ah, who am I kidding.
You don’t need “genetic testing” to see if someone’s fat.
I hate fat people. They are a huge drain on society. Obesity kills 300,000 people a year. I really don’t care about their deaths, but I do care about the costs.
> Obesity-related conditions such as Type 2 diabetes comprise a large share of overall health-care costs, estimated to run more than $12,000 a worker this year, according to a recent survey from Towers Watson and the National Business Group on Health.
You can tell if someone’s fat by looking at him. Since the “cure” doesn’t cost anything (just eat less, piggies!) companies should be free to discriminate against the fat.
I thought privacy mattered to most people.
You support the right of an employer to collect and analyze your DNA? Would that not be the more severely disgusting infringement?
Wow! That’s an extreme position. In my opinion it is well worth fighting very hard to make sure it never ever becomes popular.
Well, they analyze your urine as a matter of course but who knows what the entire gamut of the analysis might be?