First up, NYT on the DNA underground:

Victoria Grove wanted to find out if she was destined to develop the form of emphysema that ran in her family, but she did not want to ask her doctor for the DNA test that would tell her.
She worried that she might not be able to get health insurance, or even a job, if a genetic predisposition showed up in her medical records, especially since treatment for the condition, alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency, could cost over $100,000 a year. Instead, Ms. Grove sought out a service that sent a test kit to her home and returned the results directly to her.

As it turns out, Ms. Grove does have that genetic disposition, a fact she ultimately had to share when she developed some serious problems.

The first, much-anticipated benefits of personalized medicine are being lost or diluted for many Americans who are too afraid that genetic information may be used against them to take advantage of its growing availability....

But thousands of people accustomed to a health insurance system in which known risks carry financial penalties are drawing their own conclusions about how a genetic predisposition to disease is likely to be regarded.
As a result, the ability to more effectively prevent and treat genetic disease is faltering even as the means to identify risks people are born with are improving.

These insurance corporations have no business running our healthcare system.  As if to prove those on the DNA Underground were justified in being so nervous, an insurance company is in the courts to defend its snooping around in people's online profiles as the basis for denying health coverage:

Defense lawyers representing Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey are pushing the envelope in two pending class actions. They are seeking to hold the insurer liable for its refusal to pay health benefits for anorexia or bulimia of teenagers.

Horizon wants to see all of the online writings, journal and other postings on social networking sights such as Facebook and MySpace "concerning the patients' eating disorders, symptoms and complaints," Horizon's lawyer, Philip Sellinger, wrote in a January 24 letter to the magistrate judge overseeing discovery in the case.

Sellinger continued: "Such documents go to the heart of whether plaintiffs' eating disorders are biologically based mental illnesses because they will provide a candid assessment of any emotional causes for the plaintiffs' conditions."

Meanwhile, from the "Why we'll win" category: 64% of MN docs support single-payer health care.  This is big news, as the AMA--the American Medical Association--are the ones who always take it upon themselves to block reform.  Hopefully, the AMA will itself change.

Victimized by the insurance industry?  Tell America your story.