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Algorithm Contest Aims To Predict Health Problems
databuff writes "The April 4 launch of the $3 million Heritage Health Prize has been announced by the Heritage Provider Network, a network of doctors. The competition challenges data hackers to build algorithms that predict who will go to the hospital in the next year, so that preventative action can be taken. An algorithm might find that somebody with diabetes, hypertension and high cholesterol is a 90 per cent risk for hospitalization. Knowing this, it might be cheaper for an HMO to enroll them in an exercise program now rather than pay the likely hospital bill. The competition takes the same approach as the $1 million Netflix Prize, but solves a far more significant problem."
Just label them as a 'High Risk Candidate' and jack up their premiums 2-3x so they can no longer afford healthcare by the point at which they need service :P
That's likely what will happen, but not necessarily the only result.
To lower company premiums, Safeway bribes employees to quit smoking and/or lose weight:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124476804026308603.html
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
"Knowing this, it might be cheaper for an HMO to enroll them in an exercise program" OR DROP THEIR COVERAGE!
And this is different from how your current insurance provider treats you now? "You smoke? Extra fee. You ever have cancer? Extra fee".
The only people I've ever run into who have a problem with "ObamaCare" are ignorant assholes (and republicans, but they're in the same group).
the data is not centralized
Actually a solid argument could be made that the data is centralized, you just don't have access to it because your insurance company makes more money by not allowing you to access it. Insurance companies have plenty of centralized data on plenty of people in this country; enough to make very solid models - particularly models for the types of people that the insurance companies are most concerned about.
If you could get the data from just one big insurance company or HMO - like perhaps the one that is advertising on this story - you could get plenty of data to build your algorithm. You just have to convince them that you are worthy of access to it (even if it has the personal identifiers removed).
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Very few medical conditions are caused purely by lifestyle choices. Genetics play a big role. Many catastrophic expenses are due to catastrophic events, like car accidents. Even HIV is not always caused by life style choices -- millions of babies are born with it, and there is no way of determining whether a health care worker contracted it because of their job or because of their choice of sex partners.
That being said, I agree with you in principle. Public health care should be targeted at prevention and diagnostics. Catastrophic health care should be covered by insurance; if you don't pay for insurance, you're out of luck. That still doesn't change the fact that 90% of most people's health care expenses are incurred in the last 5 months of their lives, but cutting off funding for that would amount to a real version of the "death panels" the Republicans have falsely associated with the new Health Care act. Health insurance is so expensive because we simply refuse to let people die in peace.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
I love the reform haters. Here is a little story that happened to me: I found a lump near my booty hole. I am only 28, so that is pretty scary. I went to get it checked out for cancer. I had a colonoscopy (you know, what you get when you are 50). Well it cleaned out my system good enough for my gall stones to spout up and hurt alot. Remember, I am 28 and am in decent health. Within a 2 week span, I went to the doctor, had a colonscopy, went to the emergency room, had my gall bladder removed, then was bed ridden in the hospital for 5 days.
I got out on a Thursday, went back to work on the following Monday. I had to. How else am I going to pay for this? I am still making payments on it.
Maybe I wiped too hard or something, but that chain of events, then me going back to work so soon, yeah, not good. Now under what you call "ObamaCare" I would not still be paying this because once I had my colonscopy, guess what, even with a clean record of good health before this, they jacked my premiums through the roof.
Oh wait, urgent delivery:
Dear person who does not support the Health Care Reform,
We regret to inform you that we thought it would be a great idea to jack up your premiums making excuses for it. Even if the health reform is not even in place, we are going to go ahead and use that as an excuse to boost your premiums up. Also, please be aware that once you have insurance through us, if you have a salary job, regardless of what you go to the doctor for, we will go ahead and boost your premiums again.
Thank You again for supporting us and Being Republican,
Big Insurance Company
The world is how you make it
You've never enrolled in insurance have you? They don't ask this for employer-provided insurance, since that's a different kind of coverage (where they have models for the type of employees that employer tends to employ, etc). For those cases, they rely on the principles insurance is suppose to rely on, for individual buyers, they give you an anal probe and only enroll you if you are not likely to need their services.
Dear Non-Obama Health Care Customer
We have identified you as a high risk patient.
Good bye.
"In a way, doctors are trained to ignore teh science. They start with someone who already has a problem, and treat the symptoms as best they can. Science has determined many of the causes, but they are not profitable for the oligarchy, so they train our doctors to sell us pills for the symptoms"
that is completely false. While may Dr.s are not scientists, they still prefer to cure someone. It's a lie perpetrated by people whose own 'belief' aren't born out scientifically. Since they are so attached to them they invoke conspiracy that are nonsense.
"The Lipid Peroxidation [wikipedia.org] chain reaction is a large part of what causes the diabetes, hypertension and [oxidized] cholesterol problems.":
That is complete nonsense.
speaking of doctors and science:
http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
This problem will be solved shortly when Medicare melts down. Then people will get exactly as much end of life care as they can afford and no more.
Which, in the end, is how it should have been done from the beginning. When there aren't enough resources to give everybody what they want then some kind of rationing will occur no matter how much people complain and protest about it. The only decision to make is whether to have rationing by price or rationing by fiat. Rationing by price is the superior solution because then market forces will provide incentives to bring the costs down to increase the number of potential customers. Rationing by fiat puts everybody at the mercy of unelected bureaucrats.
To see how this works compare the prices of procedures that people normally pay out of pocket vs procedures that people normally pay for with OPM. Laser eye surgery has been getting cheaper over the years. Anything covered by Medicare or private health insurance has been getting more expensive.
Get with the times will you, this is Web 2.0!
(Old name) --> (New name)
Webmonkey --> Application programmer
Programmer --> Hacker
Hacker --> Terrorist