mutant registration story lines

[ratcreature]

After considering my new health insurance card, now upgraded with a photo ID to "prevent fraud" and an RFID chip with the capability to store all sorts of health information in the future as they expand the electronic systems (all totally secure and confidential of course, we are assured), it occurred to me, that in Modern AUs there is no way the government would try to push a mutant id marker directly in the personal government ID or in a separate database.

They would just "improve" the health insurance system to store medically relevant information, include mutations in that, while assuring of course that it was all confidential to health care providers and no way would the government read it or make a central database. But of course with them setting the security standards in the health care laws, they could access and read such information at any time. And since people often just carry their insurance cards with them in their wallets, probably even more so once they'll store emergency information like allergies or special conditions relevant for emergency medicine, like being on blood thinners, and obviously mutations would be put in that category (for safety of patients and medical personnel), all mutants would just carry their RFID chip identification tag on them.

Of course there wouldn't be 100% compliance, because I assume mutants living illegally like Brotherhood members would not sign up for a health insurance, but then they wouldn't voluntarily line up for extra registration either. And most regular mutants would just get their health insurance card like everyone else, even though in advance of implementing such a system some mutant rights activists probably issued dire warnings that X-gene mutations were included as routinely stored health markers, along with genetic diseases or such, but for the majority it probably didn't look like discrimination.

Comments

[sholio]

Yes, I agree! On all of it -- I mean, of course a responsible mutant renter isn't going to do anything to damage the property, just like a responsible baseline-human tenant wouldn't. But I can definitely see landlords thinking, "Oh no, I can't rent to those people, there's just no telling what they'll do!" And similarly, some neighbors probably prefer to live next door to regular humans -- prejudice, again, but a lot of landlords might worry about property values going down and such.

[ratcreature]

I bet home and property insurances would all try to get exclusion clauses for mutant-related damages. I mean, like the cases where you have a kid, it manifests and can't control its new mutation and you end up with a hole in your wall and a bunch of broken furniture.

I'm just reading a news article about that controlled WWII bomb explosion in Munich which damaged so many of the surrounding houses, and whether the insurances would cover it, and apparently all the standard household insurances you have to protect for things like fire and explosion damages have clauses to blanket exclude events like wars, revolutions and civil unrest, which I guess makes sense, because obviously it would ruin any insurance company if it insured a ton of people and then the city ends up carpet bombed or such and they all make insurance claims, but apparently this includes delayed damages of weapons too (though apparently some insurances here may cover WWII bomb damages on a goodwill basis despite the war exclusion clause).

But I expect personal liability insurances to be impossible to get for mutants if they don't disclose their mutation or agree to a general mutation caused damage exclusion clause. I mean, the common upper coverage limits would just be too easily reached with so many mutations with destructive potential. Like say a mutant like Scott, no way an insurance would want to cover for his risk of tripping, loosing his glasses and not closing his eyes quick enough or accidentally opening them.

[sholio]

Oh man, yeah, this makes total sense to me! I mean, my insurance has a war/riot exception, despite the fact that this is the unlikeliest of unlikely circumstances in the middle of Alaska. It's also pretty standard for natural disasters (floods, earthquakes, that kind of thing) not to be covered by home insurance in the U.S., so you have to purchase insurance separately for that if you want it. It makes a lot of sense that mutants would be that kind of exception also, and would have a very hard time insuring themselves, or would have to pay higher rates or whatever, even if their particular mutation was not that destructive. (Which goes back to the prejudice thing again -- most people think of "mutants" and think of what they've seen on the news, with bridges being destroyed and whatever, rather than the mutant living next door whose only power is making flowers bloom.)

[ratcreature]

Yes, here certain natural disasters are separate too. Storm damage is usually covered in the standard household insurance, but other "elemental damage" is extra. I'm sure if mutants existed, their damage would be excluded, including cases where they cause previously only natural phenomena, like weather controlling mutants or one that makes sinkholes or such. They'd probably get an extra section, like the one excluding damage from nuclear accidents and radiation now.

True nightmare scenario to get the necessary insurances for: the organizing of a mutants right convention. I remember from being on the committee of (non-powered, heh) gatherings of that kind (nothing very large, just a few hundred people), that you needed to get insurance packages, or places like universities and community centers wouldn't give you rooms, even if someone in the group had contacts and the building owners were sympathetic to whatever project or cause you had. And to offer child care and use a kindergarten over the weekend a whole other kind of extra insurance was needed. And the insurance company would (probably rightly) suspect that attendees of a mutant rights conference would want to demonstrate their mutations, or do workshops on exploring them or the like, and fear for the rooms...