The Genome Book
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November 13th, 2009
Genetic discrimination legal update: Kansas
(Note: This post is part of a series on gaps in genetic anti-discrimination laws. In the United States, the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act guards against most forms of genetic discrimination when it comes to your job or health insurance. But laws protecting other types of insurance, such as life, disability, and long-term care, are left up to the states. Every week or so, we’ll pick a different state off the map and do a legal review.)
Kansas gives its residents some protections against genetic information being used in insurance decisions, but it looks like these laws leave lots of holes, especially when it comes to life insurance.
The state covers the use of genetic information with one fairly concise law, Statute 40-2259. This section of the Kansas insurance code covers health insurers and healthcare providers quite thoroughly. These organizations may not:
- Require or request a genetic test.
- Ask a person if they or a relative has undergone genetic testing.
- Make the providing of care or insurance dependent whether a person or relative has undergone a genetic test.
- Use the fact that a person has undergone a genetic test, or the results of a genetic test, to set rates.
But when the Kansas statute gets to long-term care, disability, and life coverage, it gets weaker:
- These types insurance providers are not barred from requiring or requesting a genetic test or asking applicants and policyholders about whether they’ve undergone such testing.
- In long-term care and disability coverage, insurance providers can’t make the provision of insurance conditional on whether a person or relative has undergone a genetic testing. But when it comes to life insurance, it appears that they can.
- The requirements around using genetic information to set insurance rates are a little squishy. In one section, the law states that long-term care and disability providers may not use the fact that a person has undergone a genetic test, or the results of a genetic test, to set rates. Life insurers, however, are exempt from this prohibition. And in the very next paragraph, the law states that rates for these types of insurance may be “reasonably related” to the risk involved.
What’s the bottom line? It looks like Kansas residents have a few limited legal protections against the use of genetic-related information in long-term care and disability insurance. There appear to be few, if any, restrictions against the use of genetic-related information in the area of life insurance.
We’re not legal analysts or attorneys, so if you have detailed questions about Kansas or laws in any other state, please check with a local genetics professional, such as a genetic counselor or lawyer who specializes in this area.
Laws regarding the use of genetic information in life, disability, and long-term care insurance are different in every state, and can be confusing, even to experts. California, for example, appears to offer protections in life and disability insurance, but appears to have let its long-term care safeguards expire last year.
If there’s a state you’d like to know more about, you can look at a state-by-state overview provided by the National Conference of State Legislatures. Their list, however, was last updated in early 2008 and is no longer accurate in some cases.
In our book, we discuss general privacy laws and concerns in Chapter 8. You can also let us know here if you are interested in a specific state, and we’ll try to move it up to the top of our research list.
Categories: Chapter 8: Your Genetic Privacy
PA ReaderNovember 18, 2009
This is great info. Will you compile it into a state-by-state overview summary?
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