ideasIdea
Ban life and disability insurers from using genetic results
Fear of losing insurance stops many people having genetic tests. Extending non-discrimination law to life and disability cover, as Canada has, would remove that fear.
The US Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act excludes life and disability insurance; Canada's Genetic Non-Discrimination Act (2017) covers all uses. Propose extension of protections in countries lacking them, with evaluation of testing uptake.
Hypothesis
Legal protection increases cascade and population testing uptake by at least 10 percentage points.
Rationale
Surveys consistently cite insurance fear as a top barrier to testing.
What would test it
Difference-in-differences comparison across jurisdictions before and after legal change.
Maturity
speculative
Who has to act
policy
Cost to try
Small (under $1M)
Years to first evidence
3
Bottlenecks it attacks
- Inherited risk is mostly unidentified · Most people who carry a high-risk cancer gene do not know it until they or a relative gets cancer.
- Prevention we already have is not deployed · Around four in ten cancers are preventable with tools we already own: vaccines, tobacco control, weight, alcohol, sun and infection control.