Underscoring the complexity of protecting consumers in an age of accelerating technological innovation, NPR reports that some insurance companies specializing in life insurance and long-term care can choose to discriminate against Americans based on their genetic makeup — and the companies could even subject prospective customers to genetic testing.

Thanks to the 2007 Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA) successfully championed by Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY), health insurers cannot use a patient’s genetic information in order to hike their premium rates or curb benefits. “There were countless people in this country who were not eligible for insurance at all, simply by the way they were born,” Slaughter told NPR.

But GINA does not extend to the types of supplemental insurance that Americans predisposed to genetically-linked, degenerative diseases like Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s are likely to purchase, leaving consumers’ premiums susceptible to their genome and pushing essential long-term care costs onto patients:

“GINA was a fabulous accomplishment,” says Robert Green, a researcher in the genetics department at Harvard Medical School. “It was long in coming and much needed. But I think that it was not perfect.”

Green oversaw a study that examined how people react after they learn they have ApoE4, a gene associated with Alzheimer’s. He found that people who discover they have the gene are five times more likely than the average person to go out and buy long-term-care insurance.[...]

Green says it’s especially ironic that GINA does not apply to long-term-care insurance policies, since they cover the costs of nursing homes, assisted living facilities, home health aides and other things that people with Alzheimer’s disease often need to use.

Long-term care insurers assert that not being able to incorporate information about consumers’ genetic dispositions into their premium rates would make their businesses unsustainable. It’s true that Americans who need long-term care are almost certain to be sicker and, therefore more costly to their insurance companies, than those with standard health coverage. But on the other hand, the services covered under such insurance plans — such as home assistance and health aides — are far more rudimentary than the complex and specialized medical treatments covered under standard insurance, so permanently charging Americans higher premiums because of their genetics ends up being excessive and discriminatory.

Other than extending GINA protections to long-term care and life insurance, lawmakers could also address the disparity by requiring health insurance plans to have more long-term care options, perhaps by making such care an “essential health benefit” under Obamacare.

And the issue of human genetics is likely to remain at the forefront of policy debates for the foreseeable future. The Supreme Court is already slated to hear a case on whether or not corporations can patent the detection of certain cancer-causing genes.

The Supreme Court is set to review a case in which it will determine whether the bio-pharmaceutical company Myriad Genetics Inc. may legally patent two cancer-related human genes, paving the way for a decision that will have broad-based economic and regulatory ramifications for the biotech and drug industries — as well as for the millions of Americans whose health care may increasingly depend on such cutting-edge innovations.

Back in August, the D.C. Federal Circuit Court of Appeals ruled by a 2-1 margin that Myriad could patent the detection of two genes, BRCA1 and BRCA2, that have been linked to a heightened chance of breast and ovarian cancer in women. While Myriad and other bio-tech firms argue that such patenting is necessary to spur and protect innovation in diagnostic medical testing, critics — including the ACLU, AARP, and the AMA — warn that it could actually have the opposite effect, stifling the standardization of such testing methods and commoditizing naturally-occurring human biology:

Peter Meldrum, Myriad’s chief executive, said in a statement that the Supreme Court’s ultimate decision could affect the providing of medical treatment to hundreds of millions of people. He said Myriad’s own diagnostic test has helped nearly 1 million people learn about their risk of hereditary cancer.

“The discovery and development of pioneering diagnostics and therapeutics require a huge investment and our U.S. patent system is the engine that drives this innovation,” he said.

Many outside groups supported the petitioners, including the AARP, the American Medical Association, the American Society of Human Genetics, the March of Dimes Foundation, the National Breast Cancer Foundation and several women’s health groups.

“Some critics say it is unjust to give a company a monopoly over something as intrinsic to people’s health as their genes,” said Josephine Johnston, a research scholar at The Hastings Center, a independent bioethics research institute in Garrison, New York, who is not involved in the Myriad case.

“From an ethics perspective, one could argue that genes are owned by everybody, and that patenting them amounts to a commodification of an element of the human body,” she added.

The D.C. appellate court’s ruling also harbors a potential conflict with an earlier Supreme Court finding in which the court found that a pharmaceutical company could not patent “observations about natural phenomena.”