DISQUS

Mr. Gunn · 1 year ago

I think these are great points. I said the same things to Hsien Hsien and Steve back when it was just proposed legislation. GINA just seems like an entirely impossible to enforce, head-in-the-sand approach to the issue, not to mention how bad it'll screw up any academic research proposed for these impossible to anonymize collections of data.

Won't this allow insurance companies to more accurately determine risk, lowering the cost for everyone immediately, and then still further when medical care improves because of it?

Andrew Yates · 1 year ago

The solution isn't to better hide information, but to fix health care. I mean, really, what kind of system is so broken that we feel obligated to laud legislation to make sharing information about one health with one's health care providers... illegal? That's as backwards as to make sharing information about one's income information with one's government illegal because taxes are too high.

So, yes, GINA is important like a sandbag on a New Orleans levy: it may address a fringe immediate problem, but don't bother patting yourself on the back because the basic infrastructure needs to be replaced. It will be expensive and politically inconvenient, but... well, New Orleans isn't patting itself any more.

Mr. Gunn · 1 year ago

Well, New Orleans never really was patting themselves on the back. The Army Corps of Engineers (*federal* employees) charged with maintaining the levees were patting themselves on the back for saving so much money cutting corners. But to further the analogy, suppose something like the national flood insurance program(which isn't the best example, I understand) could provide a similar, and more sane example of how to handle insuring things for which risks are reasonably well known. Perhaps a low base rate with a rider for certain specific coverages?

Anyways, I'm glad to hear that I'm not the only one that doesn't think GINA makes any damn sense. Perhaps single-payer health care will moot the whole issue.

Any bets as to whether GINA will be as full of FAIL as the ACOE?

Andrew Yates · 1 year ago

I think both GINA and ACOE, if they provided and administrated vital, long-term social infrastructure, would be great.

But they don't, they're both short-term political tools, and neither achieves anything lasting... Health care, levies, etc.