Under the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, health-insurance companies couldn’t deny you coverage if you had a pre-existing condition like diabetes or cancer. And that included protecting you from any potential diseases you might be prone to getting, due to the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act, or GINA.
A simple genetic screening test can tell you if you’re prone to getting a disease, like Alzheimer’s or breast cancer. You might get it. You might not. And under Obamacare and GINA, that didn’t matter.
Now, as the GOP works out its own health-care plan to replace Obamacare, what some are calling “Trump-care,” concerns about what will happen with pre-existing conditions cloud the new plan’s future. And a new bill aiming to loosen the regulations laid out in GINA is being considered in Congress.
Dr. Leila Jamal is a clinical genetic counselor and bioethicist at Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics. I spoke with her more about this.
