Genetic testing will "destroy" private health market:
This article was originally published in Clinica
Executive Summary
Genetic "fortune-telling" will obliterate the current system of private medical and life insurance within the next 30 to 50 years. This is the opinion of Sir Paul Nurse, the Nobel prize-winning scientist who jointly heads Cancer Research UK. In the UK, the government will introduce screening for diseases such as cancer and that predicting disease is incompatible with medical insurance, he told the UK newspaper, The Guardian. But many othersare not so convinced. Stephen Sklaroff, deputy director of the Association of British Insurers, believes that the number of conditions for which genetic test results would be relevant for insurance conditions are going to be "pretty small". Furthermore, there is definitely opposition to such a development among the insurance industry: in 1998, the insurance industry set up a code of practice agreeing not to demand genetic tests from individual seeking UK medical insurance. Such a policy, if it continues, may be the salvation of the private medical insurance industry.