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Swab containing a DNA (Deoxyribonucleic acid) human sample with genetic testing results. Photo via Getty Images

A little-noticed bill moving through Congress would allow companies to require employees to undergo genetic testing or risk paying a penalty of thousands of dollars, and would let employers see that genetic and other health information.

Giving employers such power is now prohibited by legislation including the 2008 genetic privacy and nondiscrimination law known as GINA. The new bill gets around that landmark law by stating explicitly that GINA and other protections do not apply when genetic tests are part of a workplace wellness program.

The bill, HR 1313, was approved by a House committee on Wednesday, with all 22 Republicans supporting it and all 17 Democrats opposed. It has been overshadowed by the debate over the House GOP proposal to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, but the genetic testing bill is expected to be folded into a second ACA-related measure containing a grab-bag of provisions that do not affect federal spending, as the main bill does.

What this bill would do is completely take away the protections of existing laws, said Jennifer Mathis, director of policy and legal advocacy at the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, a civil rights group. In particular, privacy and other protections for genetic and health information in GINA and the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act would be pretty much eviscerated, she said.

Employers say they need the changes because those two landmark laws are not aligned in a consistent manner with laws about workplace wellness programs, as an employer group said in congressional testimony last week.

Employers got virtually everything they wanted for their workplace wellness programs during the Obama administration. The ACA allowed them to charge employees 30 percent, and possibly 50 percent, more for health insurance if they declined to participate in the voluntary programs, which typically include cholesterol and other screenings; health questionnaires that ask about personal habits, including plans to get pregnant; and sometimes weight loss and smoking cessation classes. And in rules that Obamas Equal Employment Opportunity Commission issued last year, a workplace wellness program counts as voluntary even if workers have to pay thousands of dollars more in premiums and deductibles if they dont participate.

Despite those wins, the business community chafed at what it saw as the last obstacles to unfettered implementation of wellness programs: the genetic information and the disabilities laws. Both measures, according to congressional testimony last week by the American Benefits Council, put at risk the availability and effectiveness of workplace wellness programs, depriving employees of benefits like improved health and productivity. The council represents Fortune 500 companies and other large employers that provide employee benefits. It did not immediately respond to questions about how lack of access to genetic information hampers wellness programs.

Rigorous studies by researchers not tied to the $8 billion wellness industry have shown that the programs improve employee health little if at all. An industry group recently concluded that they save so little on medical costs that, on average, the programs lose money. But employers continue to embrace them, partly as a way to shift more health care costs to workers, including by penalizing them financially.

READ NEXT: Do workplace wellness programs improve employees health?

The 2008 genetic law prohibits a group health plan the kind employers have from asking, let alone requiring, someone to undergo a genetic test. It also prohibits that specifically for underwriting purposes, which is where wellness programs come in. Underwriting purposes includes basing insurance deductibles, rebates, rewards, or other financial incentives on completing a health risk assessment or health screenings. In addition, any genetic information can be provided to the employer only in a de-identified, aggregated form, rather than in a way that reveals which individual has which genetic profile.

There is a big exception, however: As long as employers make providing genetic information voluntary, they can ask employees for it. Under the House bill, none of the protections for health and genetic information provided by GINA or the disabilities law would apply to workplace wellness programs as long as they complied with the ACAs very limited requirements for the programs. As a result, employers could demand that employees undergo genetic testing and health screenings.

While the information returned to employers would not include workers names, its not difficult, especially in a small company, to match a genetic profile with the individual.

That would undermine fundamentally the privacy provisions of those laws, said Nancy Cox, president of the American Society of Human Genetics, in a letter to the House Committee on Education and the Workforce the day before it approved the bill. It would allow employers to ask employees invasive questions about genetic tests they and their families have undergone and to impose stiff financial penalties on employees who choose to keep such information private, thus empowering employers to coerce their employees into providing their genetic information.

If an employer has a wellness program but does not sponsor health insurance, rather than increasing insurance premiums, the employer could dock the paychecks of workers who dont participate.

The privacy concerns also arise from how workplace wellness programs work. Employers, especially large ones, generally hire outside companies to run them. These companies are largely unregulated, and they are allowed to see genetic test results with employee names.

They sometimes sell the health information they collect from employees. As a result, employees get unexpected pitches for everything from weight-loss programs to running shoes, thanks to countless strangers poring over their health and genetic information.

This article is reproduced with permission from STAT. It was first published on March 10, 2017. Find the original story here.

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House Republicans would let employers demand workers' genetic test results - PBS NewsHour

Lou Dobbs

President Trump made his view clear during his Feb. 28 address to Congress: Obamacare is a disaster which must be repealed and replaced.

However, House Republicans are wracked by divisions over how to go about repealing and replacing the health-care law.

Many conservative House members, including Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, and Rep. Mark Walker, R-N.C., chairman of the Republican Study Committee, have publicly opposed a draft of the GOP Obamacare repeal bill that was leaked last week.

Meadows took issue with the refundable tax credits included in the draft, saying they amount to a new entitlement program.

Walker echoed Meadows, saying the draft bill risks continuing major Obamacare entitlement expansions and delays any reforms. It kicks the can down the road in the hope that a future Congress will have the political will and fiscal discipline to reduce spending that this Congress apparently lacks.

Daniel Horowitz, senior editor at Conservative Review and author of Stolen Sovereignty: How to Stop Unelected Judges From Transforming America, similarly believes the GOP leaderships draft bill misses the boat.

The sad reality is Republicans, most of them in the House and let me tell you the House members make the Senate Republicans look like James Madison compared to them they dont understand free markets, Horowitz declared during a Wednesday appearance on the Fox Business Networks Lou Dobbs Tonight.

The official position of the Chamber of Commerce since 2012 has been to fix, not repeal, Obamacare. They dont understand that the worst parts of Obamacare are the actuarily insolvent regulations, and until you get rid of them and until you pursue lowering costs rather than this economic bean counting about coverage numbers, we are never going to get this right, and Trump was right last night: the way to cover more people is to lower costs.

Trumps address to a joint session of Congress came on the heels of a first month marked by hostility between the mainstream media and the White House.

A recently released analysis by Media Tenor, a nonpartisan media research firm, found only 3 percent of news stories about President Trump on NBC and CBS during Trumps first four weeks in office were positive, while 43 percent of stories on those two networks were negative.

Many conservatives consider rampant liberal bias in the mainstream media to be a given, but Horowitz urges President Trump to bypass the media by conveying a positive message directly to the American people, just as he did Tuesday night in his address to Congress.

The media is who they are, Horowitz told Dobbs. They are not going to change. The media is incorrigibly against conservatives, any Republican, certainly theyre against Trump.

But the key is for Trump not to become his own worst enemy and follow the media into their rabbit holes, and that was the lesson from last night where he was able to speak consistently on policy issues, sound upbeat, optimistic, forward-looking, and that is a way to get his views up into the consciousness of the American people and speak above the rancor of the media.

Who REALLY rules America? Stand up against the unelected tyrants in black. Find out how in Stolen Sovereignty: How to Stop Unelected Judges From Transforming America. Available now at the WND Superstore!

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Author to Lou Dobbs: House Republicans 'don't understand free markets!' - WND.com

Susan Campodonico hadnt been out on the street protesting since the Vietnam War. But there she was, standing in front of the Grand Lake Theater in Oakland on a Tuesday afternoon, holding a neon green sign that read: Honk for single payer NOW!

She credits her presence to Indivisible: A Practical Guide for Resisting the Trump Agenda. Modeled on the success of the conservative Tea Party, the 24-page step-by-step activist playbook has exploded since it went online three months ago. Its been downloaded almost 2 million times since then by people who want to interrogate Republicans like Rep. Tom McClintock at a town hall in Mariposa or goad Democrats like Sen. Dianne Feinstein into attending one in Oakland.

What started out as some congressional staffers sharing organizing tips has mushroomed into an organization that has inspired small, autonomous groups across the nation. Not surprisingly, many of the 5,802 Indivisible-inspired groups have emerged in the predominantly liberal Bay Area 200 across six congressional districts.

And if the guide and the groups manage to keep progressives plugged into politics between presidential campaigns, Democrats could perform better in the 2018 midterm elections, contests where that party typically underperforms.

Indivisibles premise is simple: Members of Congress dont do anything unless their constituents hold them accountable, either by showing up en masse at district meetings armed with pointed questions (and video cameras to record the confrontation), or by overwhelming their offices with phone calls. Thats just what the newly born Tea Party did to Democrats after President Barack Obama took office in 2009, helping to flip the House back to the GOP in 2010.

Margaret Hasselman during weekly protest by grassroots organization Indivisible.

Margaret Hasselman during weekly protest by grassroots organization...

So the guide, written by former congressional staffers, explains in plain, activism-for-dummies language how to make those representatives listen. It details everything from how to form a group of like-minded resisters to where to sit when protesting at a town hall meeting. (Sit by yourself or in groups of two, and spread out throughout the room. This will help reinforce the impression of broad consensus.)

That kind of granular direction has been a godsend to new activists like Campodonico, a 68-year-old Piedmont occupational therapist who was struggling with how to express her anxiety over President Trumps election.

Indivisible has told me what to say, how to say it and where to say it, Campodonico said, as cars passing the Grand Lake blared their horns in support.

While the guide is focused on Congress, its designed so each group can decide what actions its members want to take. The two dozen people Campodonico joined have gone to town hall meetings together and started a book club.

On this day, she joined 50 others in what has become a weekly hour-long sign-waving protest in front of the Oakland theater whose marquee often sports a progressive political message. Many of the demonstrators, holding hand-made placards with messages both snarky (Go Fact Yourself) and serious (No ban! No wall! No bigotry!), said hearing those honks from passing motorists makes them feel like theyre not alone in their apprehension about the new administration.

Indivisible is just one of the political startups working to channel that liberal anxiety in the current political landscape. Others, like Sister District Project, Flippable, Swing Left and the Resurgent Left, are focused on showing progressives how to campaign in red Congressional districts or state races where their help and cash will be needed.

But Indivisible stands out not only in its intent but also because it is proactive, it is sustained and its growing, said Doug McAdam, author of Deeply Divided: Racial Politics and Social Movements in Postwar America.

Its power lies in how its groups are being formed locally, not by some far-away, top-down organization. Historically, thats how most enduring movements are formed, McAdam said, whether it is for civil rights or the Tea Party.

Looking back, we think of the Civil Rights movement as one cohesive thing, said McAdam, a professor of sociology at Stanford University. Not really. It was a coalition of countless local groups all acting under the name of civil rights. It was not a single entity.

But it was the Tea Party specifically, the way it went after vulnerable Democratic House members in the 2010 midterm elections that inspired Ezra Levin, 31, a former staffer for Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas, and his Indivisible co-founders. He recalled how Tea Party activists flooded the office with calls.

To understand what its like when the phones are ringing off the hook, that means everybody, and I mean everybody even the chief of staff is answering the phones, said Levin, who was a policy analyst for an antipoverty nonprofit in Washington before recently becoming Indivisibles executive director. It was quite time consuming and disruptive. ... It puts the entire party on edge.

Photo: Scott Strazzante, The Chronicle

Jane Vinson joins a protest by members of an Indivisible group on Grand Avenue in Oakland last week.

Jane Vinson joins a protest by members of an Indivisible group on Grand Avenue in Oakland last week.

Manuela Sanchez of Berkeley waves at a honking driver during the weekly protest by grassroots organization Indivisible on Grand Avenue in Oakland.

Manuela Sanchez of Berkeley waves at a honking driver during the weekly protest by grassroots organization Indivisible on Grand Avenue in Oakland.

Matt Warren holds a banner as Margaret Hasselman arrives for a weekly protest by grassroots organization Indivisible in Oakland.

Matt Warren holds a banner as Margaret Hasselman arrives for a weekly protest by grassroots organization Indivisible in Oakland.

Stephen Mr. Fun Kelly plus music during a weekly protest by the grassroots organization Indivisible on Grand Avenue in Oakland.

Stephen Mr. Fun Kelly plus music during a weekly protest by the grassroots organization Indivisible on Grand Avenue in Oakland.

A weekly protest by the grassroots organization Indivisible on Grand Avenue in Oakland.

A weekly protest by the grassroots organization Indivisible on Grand Avenue in Oakland.

David Estrada carries a banner during weekly protest by the grassroots organization Indivisible on Grand Avenue in Oakland.

David Estrada carries a banner during weekly protest by the grassroots organization Indivisible on Grand Avenue in Oakland.

Deborah Alexzander and Matt Warren during a weekly protest by the grassroots organization Indivisible on Grand Avenue in Oakland.

Deborah Alexzander and Matt Warren during a weekly protest by the grassroots organization Indivisible on Grand Avenue in Oakland.

Gayle Eads takes part during weekly protest by grassroots organization Indivisible on Grand Avenue in Oakland.

Gayle Eads takes part during weekly protest by grassroots organization Indivisible on Grand Avenue in Oakland.

David Estrada (left), Deborah Alexzander, Margaret Hasselman and Matt Warren during a weekly protest by the grassroots organization Indivisible on Grand Avenue in Oakland.

David Estrada (left), Deborah Alexzander, Margaret Hasselman and Matt Warren during a weekly protest by the grassroots organization Indivisible on Grand Avenue in Oakland.

Can Indivisible do for progressives what Tea Party did for GOP?

So during a couple of weeks after the election last fall, he and about 30 former and current congressional staffers and other wonky colleagues wrote a game plan, outlining how liberals could fight back using those same tactics.

Like what to do after asking a hostile question at a town hall:

A staffer will often try to limit your ability to follow up by taking the microphone back immediately after you finish speaking. They cant do that if you keep a firm hold on the mic. No staffer in their right mind wants to look like theyre physically intimidating a constituent, so they will back off, the guide instructs.

Levin is claiming some early victories. Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., has long wanted to repeal the Affordable Care Act. But after an Arkansas chapter called Ozark Indivisible criticized Cotton for canceling a town hall meeing, 1,000 people showed up for his next one. There, one of the senators constituents explained that her husband is dying of Alzheimers disease. She currently pays $29 a month for her husbands insurance.

And you want to stand there with him at home, expect us to be calm, cool and collected? the woman asked Cotton in a widely shared video. Well, what kind of insurance do you have?

Last week, Cotton was one of the first GOP senators to say that Republicans are moving too fast on pushing their replacement health care bill through Congress.

I do not want to move in a hasty fashion. I want to get it right. I don't want to get it fast, Cotton said on MSNBC.

Levins take: Do you think he would have said that if all those people didnt show up at his town hall?

Now, Indivisible faces challenges, starting with how to manage its growth. The once-volunteer enterprise is hiring several field organizers and has started raising money. More than 13,000 people have donated $520,000 in the last five weeks.

Levin believes the group isnt as diverse as it should be. This week, it will release tips on how groups can broaden their ranks.

We think that its really important that the people most likely to be targeted by immigration legislation, for example, be front and center, Levin said. People have got to pass the mike.

And then theres the question of whether Indivisible can translate that energy into electoral power, said Buffy Wicks, a top state organizer for Obama. Can they develop leaders who can lead the movement?

But Mark Meckler, the Grass Valley attorney who was a co-founder and national coordinator for Tea Party Patriots in 2009, said Indivisibles comparisons to the Tea Partiers is one of the most freaking hilarious things Ive heard in my life.

Indivisible is fundamentally organized by Capitol Hill staffers. We didnt have any Capitol Hill staffers, Meckler said. While conservative organizations that included Washington operatives like Freedom Works were also later involved in the Tea Party movement, Meckler dismissed their contributions. We didnt get anything from them.

These guys (Indivisible) think they know what the Tea Party was about, but theyre totally clueless, said Meckler, who now leads a group called Citizens for Self Governance, which wants to bring more power to the states.

Another question is how Indivisible will focus its message. Or should it?

Standing near Campodonico last week in Oakland were people holding signs in support of Black Lives Matter, LGBT rights, the environment, and dumping Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

I think it empowers us all, said Nancy McCormick, a Castro Valley resident. While the Muslim ban or the Affordable Care Act might not be my No. 1 issue, Im going to be out here because theyre all connected.

The potential downside is that with so many splintered interests, McAdam, the author and professor, said, the power of any one issue is diffused.

I wrestle with this question all the time, he said. All those different people give a movement a certain kind of dynamism. But when there are 38 different issues, there is a concern about whether there will be enough sustained energy around one to make a difference.

Joe Garofoli is The San Francisco Chronicles senior political writer. Email: jgarofoli@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @joegarofoli

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Can Indivisible do for progressives what Tea Party did for GOP? - San Francisco Chronicle

In the hopes of amplifying their objections to President Donald Trump and his policies, Irish and American progressive activists will host an event calling for human rights and welcoming immigrants on St. Patricks Day in New York City.

Irish Stand, as organizers are calling it, will take place in the Riverside Church on Manhattans West side on Friday evening. It will feature speeches from a number of Irish civil rights advocates, including Irish Labour Party Senator Aodhn Rordin, actor Gabriel Byrne, comedian Maeve Higgins and author Colum McCann, as well as prominent American faith leaders, artists and activists like Shaun King of the movement for black lives.

Tickets are $15 and the proceeds will go to the American Civil Liberties Union.

It was especially important for Irish people to hold a rally on St. Patricks Day, Irelands national holiday, according to Sen. Rordin, whose impassioned appeal for the Irish government to criticize Trumps xenophobic rhetoric went viral in November.

We have a strong voice and we need to use it, Rordin said. We have to say, Look, on this day, on the day that everyone considers themselves a little bit Irish, we have to speak up for immigrants everywhere.

Several activists, including King, contacted Rordin after his famous November speech with the goal of collaborating on transatlantic civil rights efforts. Rordin saw Trumps election as the culmination of a nationalist wave sweeping Western countries that included the United Kingdoms vote to leave the European Union, commonly known as Brexit.

We feel it keenly in Ireland because were right between Trump and Brexit. Were right between the two major earthquakes in the Western world over the last year or so, he said.

After Trump implemented the first travel ban in January, Rordin, King and others settled on doing an event on St. Patricks Day.King recommended Riverside Church, according to Rordin, since it was the site of Martin Luther King Jr.s historic speech against the Vietnam War almost exactly 50 years earlier.

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

St. Patricks Day has historically been a politically important day for U.S.-Irish relations.

For decades, Irish prime ministers have visited the White House on or near St. Patricks Day to present the U.S. president a bowl of shamrock as a gesture of friendship. During difficult times, such as the Troubles in Northern Ireland, it was an opportunity for Irish officials to discuss peacemaking efforts with American lawmakers.

The tradition will continue this year under Trump, which makes it essential that other Irish people show their displeasure with Trumps anti-immigrant rhetoric and policies, according to Rordin.

Its a big deal, Rordin said of the shamrock ceremony. But the fact that this is the first Patricks day since Trumps election, and the fact that the focus of this administration seems to be ... a very negative view of immigrants, we feel is an affront to our people as Irish people. If they are to have a critical view of any immigrant people, then they have a critical view, to be honest, of us too.

Irish Stand is also intended to signal that the Irish-Americans collaborating with Trump are out of touch with the national history of Irish people as immigrants fleeing persecution, Rordin said. There are currently an estimated 50,000 undocumented Irish immigrants living in the United States as well, he noted.

What were really conscious of, and what Im really conscious of, is that quite a number of Irish-Americans surround Trump Bannon, Conway, Pence, Spicer, Flynn, Kelly these are all Irish-Americans, these are all Irish names Ryan, Rordin said, referring to top Trump administration officials and House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.). These are all people that in my judgment have completely forgotten their family history, because the Irish story is one that has been replicated now by other people We were once the people who came to America as refugees. We were viewed by the British as being terrorists. We were people who suffered sectarian discrimination in the United Kingdom and [in the U.S.] as well.

The rest is here:
Irish And American Progressives Are Organizing A St. Patrick's Day Rally Against Trump In New York - Huffington Post

Labor's Mark McGowan with his family: he took power in a landslide.

The decision to cut a preference deal with One Nation at Saturday's state electionwas motivated by internal polling that showed fewer than 30 per cent of people were prepared to give the Barnett government their primary vote.

With both One Nation leader Pauline Hanson and the Liberals blaming the preference deal, in part, for their respective poor performances on Saturday, Senior WALiberal MathiasCormannsaid the Liberals' own internal polling had their primary vote as low as 29 per cent.

"All throughout the campaign it has hovered at the 29 per cent-to-31 per cent at State level. If we wanted to minimise losses, maximise our chances of holding onto seats, we needed to be able to source preferences and clearly, these weren't going to come from Labor and the Greens," he told the ABC's Insiders program.

"The election result last night has been a long time coming. It is not unexpected. All of the published and internal polling indicated that this was the way it was going to go.

"As far as the preference deal is concerned, the Liberal Party's consideration was looking at our primary vote long before the campaign got underway, long before any preference arrangements were entered into."

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull did not rule outfuture deals with One Nation, saying that would be decided closer to the election. He said the WA result was driven overwhelmingly by state issues and the "it's time" factor.

But Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce called the deal "a mistake" because it confused voters of both parties, as well as the Nationals. One Nationhad had " a shocker" and the Liberals a "bad day at the office".

"It's in the Liberal Party'sinterestto be close to the National Party and it's in the National Party's interest to be close to Liberal Party and it is in bothinterestsnot to be close to anybody else," Mr Joyce said.

On Saturday, Labor's Mark McGowan was swept to power on the back of a massive landslide driven primarily by the collapse of the WA mining-based economy and the longevity of a reform-shy government.

As of the latest count, the Liberals had suffered a primary swing against them of 15.7 per cent for a primary vote of 31.4 per cent. Most of it went to Labor which received 9.7 per cent primary swing.

The Greens held at 8.5 per cent, the Nationals,who are not in Coalition with the Liberals, stayed relatively steady at 5.4 per cent while One Nation underperformed with just 4.7 per cent.

This was not enough for a lower house seat and may only see it gain one Upper House seat when it was confident of up to five seats and the balance of power.

One Nation leader Pauline Hanson blamed the preference deal "definitely damaged us" because to voters, it looked as though One Nation was betraying its anti-establishment platform by supporting the government.

"We are going to really have to have a good look at this," she said of cutting future deals with the conservatives in this year's Queensland state election or the next federal election.

She said the Liberals should have replaced Mr Barnett before the election because he had become the political equivalent of "sour milk".

Senator Cormann said it was to early to speculate on future dealings with One Nation.

"The circumstances at a federal level is very different. We are in a strong and united Coalition with the National Party at the federal level.

"The National Party in WA took the view that they didn't want to be in Coalition with us, they wanted to be more independent and only enter into an alliance," he said.

"These are judgements that will be made at the right time. We will review all aspects of the campaign and the ultimate outcome and relevant judgements will be made at the right time."

The deal, in which the Liberals referenced One Nation in the Upper House in return for lower house support, angered Oe Nation voters and moderate LIberals.

In declaring victory, Mr McGowan said the Liberals had paid a price.

"Today, we showed we are a State of decency and intelligence, not a State of stupidity and ignorance," he said.

Labor leader Bill Shorten claimed the recent decision to cut penalty rates had contributed to the result. He called the One Nation deal the "ultimate exploding cigar".

Senator Cormann said the government had give WA $1 billion in extra grants but to change the whole formula would create problems elsewhere because another state would lose out.

"In relation to GST sharing arrangements, we did as much as we could in an appropriate fashion, bearing in mind that a national Government has the responsibility to act in the national interests."

He played down its impact on the result.

"This was a big issue in the lead-up to the last federal election and we won 11 out of 16 seats (inWA), 54.7 per cent of the two party preferred," he said.

"This is an issue in WA, no doubt about it. By the same token, we have to be realistic on what a national Government can do in relation to these sorts of issues and the timetable is determined by what happens with the GST sharing arrangements moving forward."

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WA election: Liberals defend One Nation deal despite rout - The Australian Financial Review