When my second son was born and was just so very tiny some genetic test came out questionable. We were very strongly encouraged to go to Childrens hospital ASAP to get more tests. He handled it well, being just a few weeks old. The tests came with "he's a carrier of something obscure but nothing to worry about", so it's all forgotten.
Three interesting thing come out of it from me. First, I was on Microsoft insurance which was quite gold plated at a time, a blessing only obvious in rear-view mirror, because Childrens was quite excited to continue any number of tests. Second, the technology of all this is absolutely amazing and I am so happy that it was available to me, and it has likely gotten better. Three, I want that tech to continue to expand and current destruction up there is going to hand this torch to someone else, which makes me sad.
> I was on Microsoft insurance which was quite gold plated at a time
One of the biggest perks of working for Microsoft for a long time was their health coverage. I can't tell you the number of times I'd be doing initial paperwork for a doctor's appointment and the receptionist would be like, "Oh you have THAT insurance, we're going to do all of the tests." I've heard they since cut back on it a little, but it truly was gold plated.
Circa 2005, Stanford FTEs had nine (9) health insurance plan choices. ;P
Is that better or worse than having one really good one?
;) Paradox of choice potentially, but allowed choosing something other than Kaiser Permanente (HMO with own facilities and doctors) such as a PPO option.
What America really needs is an NHS not tied to employment or exploited by fraudsters delivering worse care for profit. Human rights shouldn't be perks of employment.
My niece in Australia has a rare genetic disorder and when my wife and I had our first baby in California a few years ago we were concerned about that. We also had fantastic insurance and the hospital team there did a test where they took a blood sample from my wife and seperated the childs DNA from the mothers in the blood sample and tested it for several genetic disorders. That test is not available in Australia even today.
> That test is not available in Australia even today.
Pretty much every lab test is available in Australia if you are willing to pay for it; if they don’t have a local lab capable of running the test, they’ll send the sample overseas
The real question is whether it is covered by insurance or not, and a lot of the time the answer is “no” - I recently forked out over US$500 for genetic tests on one of our kids (which the paediatrician recommended), although the results weren’t particularly helpful (“rare variant of uncertain clinical significance”)
Incredibly that test (cell-free fetal DNA - cfDNA) is now standard in California, to the point where most expecting parents in California now learn the baby’s gender super early. We learned our baby’s gender only 10 weeks into pregnancy because of the cfDNA test.