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Aetna To Provide Apple Watch To 50,000 Employees, Subsidize Cost For Customers (macrumors.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Mac Rumors: Insurance company Aetna today announced a major health initiative centered on the iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch, which will see Aetna subsidizing the cost of the Apple Watch for both large employers and individual customers. Starting this fall during open enrollment season, Aetna will subsidize "a significant portion" of the Apple Watch cost and will offer monthly payroll deductions to cover the remaining cost. Aetna also plans to provide Apple Watches at no cost to all of its nearly 50,000 employees as part of a wellness reimbursement program to encourage them to live healthier lives. Aetna plans to develop several iOS health initiatives with "support" from Apple, debuting "deeply integrated" health apps for the iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch that will be available to all Aetna customers. According to Aetna, these apps will "simplify the healthcare process" with features like care management to guide customers through a new diagnosis or a medication, medication reminders and tools for easy refills, quick contact with doctors, integration with Apple Wallet for paying bills and checking deductibles, and tools to help Aetna members get the most out of their insurance benefits. Aetna's health-related apps will be available starting in early 2017, but the Apple Watch initiative will begin in 2016. Aetna has not detailed how much of the cost will be subsidized or which Apple Watch models will be available to subscribers.
This could be used to filter out who NOT to insure or how much more to charge a customer based on their lifestyle
It could, but that is no longer legal under the ACA.
You could argue that won't stop them, but it IS illegal and there ARE penalties for such behaviour.
You should probably hope that those studies are correct as there's a lot of conflicting evidence, because if health trackers are at all beneficial other companies are going to start pushing them as well. You won't *have* to use one, but if you want the lower rates you will.
I train brazillian Jui Jitsu. I wanted to wear a fitness tracker to figure out how much work I do in a session because they are very intense, the warm-ups are what most fitness places call a 'work-out'. You can wear them in the warm up however the trouble with them is they get torn off when you fight and they *can't* track the amount of work I am doing. They also injure training partners. I've considered wearing them around my shoulder or ankle however I'm not sure you can do that with them. It also give opponents a grip point that you can't release yourself from, so they are a tactical disadvantage.
That's why insurance companies getting involved with fitness seems stupid, they can never really capture my choices for fitness or understand how fit I am (from 6 days a week of 2 hr sessions) or what I have to do to maintain my fitness. Inevitabley, if insurance companies get involved, they will conglomerate the choices into something that works for the masses, be ineffective for people who really need to get fit and crate a hassle for many people for who exercise is lifestyle.
Fitness trackers don't work for everyone.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.