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Health Insurers Are Vacuuming Up Details About You -- And It Could Raise Your Rates (propublica.org)
schwit1 shares an excerpt from an in-depth report via ProPublica and NPR, which have been investigating for the past year the various tactics the health insurance industry uses to maximize its profits: A future in which everything you do -- the things you buy, the food you eat, the time you spend watching TV -- may help determine how much you pay for health insurance. With little public scrutiny, the health insurance industry has joined forces with data brokers to vacuum up personal details about hundreds of millions of Americans, including, odds are, many readers of this story. The companies are tracking your race, education level, TV habits, marital status, net worth. They're collecting what you post on social media, whether you're behind on your bills, what you order online. Then they feed this information into complicated computer algorithms that spit out predictions about how much your health care could cost them. Patient advocates warn that using unverified, error-prone "lifestyle" data to make medical assumptions could lead insurers to improperly price plans -- for instance raising rates based on false information -- or discriminate against anyone tagged as high cost. And, they say, the use of the data raises thorny questions that should be debated publicly, such as: Should a person's rates be raised because algorithms say they are more likely to run up medical bills? Such questions would be moot in Europe, where a strict law took effect in May that bans trading in personal data.
I'd hate to live in a country where basic medical care isn't free.
Sounds like a third world undeveloped nation, where the government can't afford to run hospitals.
No other 1st world nation treats it's own citizens as badly as the USA does. Notable areas are health care, education and the private prison system.
The sooner we let go of the idea that America is 1st world, the better. It no longer shares the western liberalism ideals that have driven much of humans forward over the last 200 years. Specifically, it's lost site of "equality" and replaced it with rampant capitalism.
It wasn't always this way. America 1950 - 1970 was decidedly better for it's citizens than the late stage capitalism technological dystopia that is now before us.
Unless they also factor in your arrogance, which drastically increases your chances of being harmed by other humans.
Except that one time you searched for Little Debbie snack cakes to prove to your friends how unhealthy they are for you. The data aggregator just lumps you in with the rest of the "unhealthy eaters" out there.
Now your insurance premiums go up by $200/mo with no explanation and no way to dispute the data.
This is also shit -- not everyone wants to be tagged with a GPS tracker like some weird migratory bird experiment. The sooner the private insurers are kicked to the curb and replaced with a fair system of public insurance, paid for by a per-cent tax on income, the better. And by kicked to the curb, I mean expropriated and ideally jailed for a few years in general prison population.
in Europe they just guess based on what health care has cost
nothing to see here - move along
The current trend about insurance is a Mormon idea (Google :: Medical Information Bureau),
started a _long_ time ago under the guise of "fraud protection." If the U.S. would finally adopt
single payer, none of this BS would be relevant any more. Dunno what it's gonna take, though...
CAP === 'fathoms'
Compare medical costs for common procedures between the US and the rest of the world, and you'll be singing a different tune. Yeah, yeah, it's tax-supported in many places. What do WE get for our tax dollars? Expensive healthcare, bad schools, mass incarceration, and a military juggernaut that hasn't truly won a war in decades.
Too many of you say "oh, well, privacy is dead and nobody cares, so why bother even trying?". Well, now it may cost people more money, or get them booted out of their medical coverage entirely, or who knows, get them fired from their job because they'll (potentially) raise the group rates too much? People will suddenly start caring about their privacy and who has access to all the data about their lives. Hit people in the pocketbook and they'll suddenly pay attention to all sorts of things that they said they didn't care about.
Plus all the various other taxes that are used to subsidize it, of course.
> Here in BC, Canada it's a whopping $75/month per family, assuming two adults.
I would rather not have to wait 6 weeks for an MRI, or have trouble even getting a family doctor, or have to go to the ER on the weekend instead of one of the several quick care clinics within easy walking distance even in my sorry post-cancer condition.
The idea you think you can get away with paying only $75 per family is why I want NOTHING to do with people like you having monopoly control over my cancer treatment.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
> Tests in the US aren't immediately scheduled either
My GP has his own blood testing machine. I've had MRIs, CAT scans, and ultrasounds done immediately. My first oncology consult was done on a weekend.
> What's the big deal about going to the ER if it's cheap and relatively well-run
The ER is not cheap. You just think it's free because you aren't directly paying for it. You are abusing a shared resource because you don't think it has any value. That places a collective burden on the rest of us.
It's the kind of abusive nonsense that you get out of socialism. Individual ideas about worth and value are distorted because you perceive things as gratis.
Although you are forgetting triage. An ER in a system running at near capacity is not going to be "well run". Or rather, you will be at the END of a long queue because you're an idiot and patients with real problems need to be seen first.
While you are waiting at the ER because you aren't really dying, I can check in to the local quick care clinic online and not have to wait in a room full of sick people for hours on end. I can show up when they actually expect to see me.
Capitalism is a beautiful thing. Smart, hungry, greedy innovative people will stand in line to take my money and give me something better in return. Instead of shortages, there are so many facilities around you wonder how they all stay in business.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Better a state of decent mediocrity when no one goes hungry than a country where people have to slave to avoid hunger. Innovation and hunger == constant stress == lower life expectancies, less enjoyment from life, more illness.
they're just _paying_ for it. No matter what anybody is telling you nobody is suggesting we nationalize healthcare. We're nationalizing _insurance_; e.g. the paying part. Hence the name "single payer".
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Before Obamacare, the state private markets were based strictly on age.
So?
After Trumpcare they might be based on age and your online habits.
It's only far that your insurance company knows as much about you as possible, right? That way the rich people with easy jobs and healthy living conditions can pay less.
No sig today...
Indeed, there are reasons why the US system is so much more expensive than its Canadian counterparts. The US has a Lexus style system (for those lucky enough to have good insurance) and Lexus prices. The Canadian system, is more Corolla style with Corolla price.
But like two cars, the interesting thing is that the health outcomes for identical conditions are nearly identical.
What you purchase for an expensive health-care system is a much more pleasant system (no lines, lots of tests that occasionally catch something, but mostly make the patient feel better, etc.) and marginally better outcomes.
The downside is, of course, that costs are so high that there's really no way of providing fairly comprehensive medical service to the entire population.
As a Canadian, naturally, I prefer a system that allows all Canadians to be covered (with difficulties, of course, there are lines, and in some areas, primary care doctors are harder to find - natural outcomes of a much more economical system) over a more pleasant system with similar outcomes, where a substantial portion of my fellow citizens access to health-care is a major source of stress and concern (to put it mildly).
Psychologically, I think our health-care system helps bind us together - it is a concrete and ever-present example that as a people, we have expressed a sentiment that the lives of all Canadians are equally important, from the richest to the poorest. It's an ideal, and we certainly don't meet that ideal, but we spend considerable resources attempting to do so, and I think that makes a great deal of difference to who we are as a people.
I'll take the fact that my taxes are buying Corollas for four rather than a Lexus just for myself. It's not a trade-off I'd necessarily make individually, but it's one that I'm happy to have the government make on my behalf.