My short answer is no, they should not be able to discriminate. With just about any other form of insurance the answer would be "yes". But not with health insurance. The reason is a little complex.

Insurance lets us share the load of unpredictable and infrequent disasters. It works well because the moment something becomes predictable (eg a bush fire might destroy your house), you can do something about it - like move house. And the moment you can do something about it, it sounds reasonable to me that you shouldn't be a burden on the rest of us if you choose not to, and coincidently your insurable goes up.

Bad genes are also a infrequent and unpredictable disaster, of course, but you can't do something about it when you find out about them. Changing bodies isn't as simple as changing house. And since it isn't, it does seem unreasonable to me that we all share the burden.

Where this becomes interesting is when a person does know there is a high likelihood of getting bad genes into the pool, but proceed anyway. When does that happen? When the parents know they are the carrier of some horrid genetic disease, and don't take steps to abort any foetus who they pass the bad genes onto.

So here is a question that isn't so easy to answer. When that happens, is it reasonable to hike the health insurance for the resulting child? I happen to think the answer is yes. But with that answer comes another consequence. The insurance companies will then in effect become arbiters of what genes are allowed back into the gene pool.

Oh, what a tangled web we weave...

That's ok then, rstuart.

>>no, they should not be able to discriminate. With just about any other form of insurance the answer would be "yes". But not with health insurance<<

Health insurance is non-discriminatory, by law.

The only qualification is to be alive.

Pericles: "Health insurance is non-discriminatory, by law."

True. My mistake. I don't know why I wrote "health insurance". I meant intended my comments apply to any form of insurance.

Pericles,while it is true that lying about your health at the time of taking out an insurance policy can negate a claim;what if during the time of the policy you develop a disease that limits your lifespan?Can your insurance company then increase premiums at will because of this new found knowledge? Insurance companies can increase premiums each yr beyond inflation,so if they have inside medical info, they know that you are between a rock and a hard place in terms of taking out a new life policy.

Medical and genetic info should be with held from all insurance companies.It is time to get back to mutual societies that exclude corporate rapacious greed and Govt waste.

There's no need for the polemic, Arjay, you are on the right track.

The idea of insurance is to spread risk across a community.

If you define too narrowly the community that you insure, then the entire objective is lost.

Instead of insurance having a community purpose, it simply becomes a means to make a profit from the misfortunes of others.

A bit like lawyers.

And politicians.

How can ya keep any sort of information away from anybody.
Science has the tools to fix genetic problems.
So the problem is selected.
In breeding is definately a problem.
People mate with any one at any time you don't even have to know the persons name.
40% of woman don't know the father of their child, weather they are married or not.
Children with problems are becomming one of the biggest problems we have.
Insurance is a private business, if ya tell them lies or withhold imfo they will get ya in the end.
Of course ins will discriminate against people with genetic defects, wouldn't you if you were an employer, or any other sort of buisiness
Au has a very small population and this was always bound to happen.
The solution can only ly in the hands of human nature, which will never happen