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Insurers, Consumers, and Testing: The AIDS Experience

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 April 2021

Peter Hiam
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Extract

At the end of 1987, the insurance industry could breathe a sigh of relief. By a combination of good luck, astute planning, and nerve, life and health insurers had managed to impose HIV-testing requirements on insurance applicants while making few concessions to the gay community or insurance regulators. To a greater degree than almost anyone had thought possible, the insurers had deflected most of the expected health costs from the AIDS epidemic onto the nation’s taxpayers, and had taken steps to deny life or health insurance to anyone they considered to be at risk of AIDS.

The use of blood tests to determine if an individual is infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that causes AIDS has been a matter of considerable controversy. Yet to date only a handful of states have restricted the use of HIV testing by companies offering life or health insurance.

Type
AIDS: Insurance
Information
Law, Medicine and Healthcare , Volume 15 , Issue 4 , Winter 1987 , pp. 212 - 222
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Law, Medicine and Ethics 1987

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References

Calif. Health & Safety Code, c. 1.11, $199.21 (1988) (prohibiting use of HIV blood test that identifies person tested for determination of insurability); 7 D.C. Code Anno. $35-221-229(1987) (insurer may not deny insurance because of positive HIV test or because individual declines to take test; before August 1991, insurers may not require individuals to take test or consider tests for rate-making purposes); 29 Fla. Stats. Anno. $381,606 (1986) (prohibiting result of serologic test conducted under Health Department declaration of public health threat to determine if a person may be insured for disability, health, or life insurance); 9 C.Mass.R. $36.01-36.15 (1987) (prohibiting HIV tests for accident and health insurance and group life insurance; permits HIV testing on the basis of objective criteria for individual life and non-cancelable disability insurance under certain conditions) (regulations under preliminary injunction; Life Ins. Ass'n of Mass. v. Singer, CA No. 87-5321, Supr. Ct., Suffolk Cry, Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly, 16 (Oct. 12, 1987): 105-6); 11 N.Y.C.R.R. $52.27 (1987) (prohibiting HIV tests for determination of insurability for health insurance). See also Office of Technology Assessment, AIDS and Health Insurance—An OTA Survey (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1988).Google Scholar
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