Just good business.

When someone with the gene mutation for Huntington’s Disease is denied insurance, it’s not discrimination.  It’s just good business.

Insurers base their coverage and rates for life insurance on how soon a person is likely to die.  Rates for health insurance are based on how many claims a person is likely to make.  If an insurance company pays out more than they take in, the business will fail.  This is common sense.

Basic insurance involves a large group of people paying relatively small amounts of money against a correspondingly small risk of actually needing the insurance.  Both sides take a risk.  The insurer risks having to pay out on large numbers of policies and the insureds take a risk of paying for insurance when they might never need to make a claim.  It’s a balance.

What about Huntington’s Disease?  An individual with the mutation for Huntington’s Disease will develop the disease and they will die within 20 years of disease onset.  How likely is an individual with HD to file a disability claim?  Approximately 100%.  How likely are they to have very large claims for medical bills?  100%.  How likely are they to die earlier than average?  100%.

We can’t expect insurance companies to cover extremely high risk cases without also requiring all healthy people to purchase insurance.  To be clear, we should not do either of those things.

If you knew that you would be hit by a car tomorrow, would you leave your house?  I wouldn’t.