Cliff Stearns: “should an insurance company be able to deny children medical coverage because their mother died of an inherited heart…”

“should an insurance company be able to deny children medical coverage because their mother died of an inherited heart defect that her children may or may not carry? That is the dilemma facing a California father who cannot get family medical coverage under his group plan as a result of his wife's death. And that is a dilemma crying out for congressional intervention. Scientific knowledge of the secrets hidden deep inside our genes is advancing at an unbelievable rate. It seems that we learn of a new genetic discovery on a weekly basis. But, as researchers find the genetic mutations that cause specific diseases or that appear to cause a genetic predisposition to specific diseases, a host of ethical, legal, and social complications arise that will take our greatest efforts to resolve. The human genome project is a 15-year, multinational research effort to read and understand the chemical formula that creates each of the 80,000 to 100,000 human genes.”