One third of women decline breast cancer screening tests for fear of losing their health insurance coverage or having to pay higher rates. It is unacceptable that many people are putting their lives at risk rather than taking a test to determine if they are at risk for a disease. A bill, sponsored by Sen. Olympia Snowe and endorsed by the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee last week, would ensure no one has to make this difficult choice.

The Genetic Nondiscrimination Act would prohibit insurance companies from discriminating against individuals based on their genetic information and it would prohibit use of such information in employment decisions.

Sen. Snowe first introduced the legislation in 1996. The updated version of the bill required compromise. A key to earning bipartisan support for the measure was to ensure that healthy people with a predisposition to a disease are not afforded more protection than someone who already has the illness. Sen. Snowe’s bill accomplishes this by building upon existing protections under the Civil Rights Act rather than creating a new class of protected people.

Under the legislation, insurance companies would be barred from collecting genetic information prior to one’s enrollment in a health plan and would not be able to use genetic information to deny coverage or set premium rates. Genetic information could not be used by employers to make hiring, firing, promotion and job assignment decisions.

A similar bill, co-sponsored by Rep. Tom Allen, is pending in the House.

According to the National Institutes of Health, nearly one-third of those who were offered a test for breast cancer risk by the agency declined, citing concerns about health insurance discrimination. The daughter of a Hampden cancer survivor declined such a test even though nine women in her family had had breast cancer. This puts people’s lives at risk and unnecessarily increases health care costs.

Recent advances in genetic mapping and testing will be for naught if people are afraid to access such information. “At a time when our knowledge of genetics can both improve health and reduce expenditures, it is absolutely essential that Americans can realize those benefits.”

Enacting the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act will help bring public policy in line with technological advances.