The points that I am tying to make are:

1) The laws prohibiting discrimination based on certain criteria are immoral.

2) These laws are largely unenforceable.

3) People would be more eager to be tested if the government weren’t making medical care unaffordable.

4) Employers would not care about a person’s predisposition towards genetic illness if it was easier to fire sick people and if they weren’t paying medical insurance premiums for their employees.

I have no problem with people hiring people who are predisposed to suffer from genetic illnesses. I have no problem with people taking care of sick family members, in fact I encourage it. just because I don’t think something should be prohibited does not mean I think it should be mandatory.

Dr Collins has identified yet another aspect of the complete mess government intervention has made of the medical industry. People cannot afford to pay for their own medical care out of pocket, primarily because state governments unconscionably reduce the number of practicing doctors to a fraction of what would be provided in a free market, and because of federal tax laws encourage people to purchase socialized medical care from their employers, resulting in a form of the tragedy-of-the-commons where people are encouraged to over-consume medical care. We should be condemning the way the U.S. and state governments have cartelized the medical industry; it is this cartelization that causes people fear that without these nondiscrimination policies that they couldn’t afford to have their broken bones treated. Rather than calling for yet another unenforceable law, it would be better for Doctor Collins to lobby for the dismantling of Medicare and Medicaid, the repeal of tax laws that encourage employer funded health coverage, and the numerical caps placed by state licensure boards on the number of students medical schools graduate and the number of doctors who are allowed to practice medicine within each state.

Excellent points. I completely agree. Larger, freer markets are a consumer’s best friend. They always mean the best possible goods and services at the lowest possible prices.

As far as employment…

How many of us have been asked by a prospective employer to pee in a cup? I have always agreed, but known I could decline to offer that information when entering the employment contract if I chose. I can contract with another employer if it’s a deal-breaker for me.

I ask the employer questions about their financial solvency, management principles, and turnover. So far, they always choose to answer my questions as well. They can hire another employee if my questions are too intrusive.

I am not forced to give more information than I choose, nor are they. I am not forced to ignore aspects I uncover about the company that are unfavorable, and they…hmmm. Well that’s probably going to change now, isn’t it?

For me, this is more a question of information privacy, not discrimination.

As far as anti-discrimination laws, I’ve never been a fan of any government intrusion into willing agreements (or disagreement) between private citizens.

The government shouldn’t have a right to invade your privacy. When you get into private individuals and private employers, however, it’s a much grayer area.

Yet another article that shows that libertarians clearly have not developped [sic] mentally enough to grasp the concepts of Civilization.

I love it when statists try to insult our intellectual capacity while filling their comments with typos, non-sequiturs and grammatical errors. It’s like having a four-year old tell you he can beat you up. :)

So, where did I go wrong?

Was I wrong when I said that there should be freedom of association? Should you be forced to hire skin-heads? Room with neo-nazi’s?

Was I wrong when I said that governments shouldn’t artificially limit the number of doctors in order to keep their wages artificially high?

Or was I wrong when I argue that tax laws that compel people to depend on their employers for medical coverage should be repealed because it harms both the employer and employee?

Or am I being uncivilized when I argue that we should not have laws on the books that are largely unenforceable, are easily evaded by the politically connected, but provide yet another club with which political appointees can harass businesses and organizations that oppose the dominant political party’s political aims?

Where, pray tell, did I go wrong?