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.

Comments

That stucks

[viperidaenz]

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.

Re:That stucks

[b0s0z0ku]

Enough to protect themselves without breaking the bank and worshiping their militaries like some kind of false idols. (While quietly mistreating their veterans.)

If the US truly wanted to merely "defend" itself, it wouldn't be expensive -- a few ICBM silos and missile subs are an ample deterrent against invasion. The problem is US bullying of other countries to support obsolete industries like Saudi oil, their pet theocracies in the Middle East, and an unwinnable war on (some) drugs.

Re: That stucks

[toadlife]

you'd rather have the government make the rules.

Yes.

You want that heart bypass surgery? No problem, we'll pencil you in for July 6th, 2028.

An absurd exaggeration that flies in the face of actual data from countries with socialized healthcare systems, but absurdity is guaranteed when your argument has nothing of substance to stand on.

Re:That stucks

[b0s0z0ku]

Problem is that an entirely government system might actually be cheaper. It wouldn't need parallel systems like Medicare, Medicaid, and the VA. It wouldn't need layers of bureaucrats to determine who's eligible for which services and which subsidies. The US has layers upon layers of inefficiency, both in private and public insurance.

Re: That stucks

[ceoyoyo]

The plural of anecdote is not data. Proper health outcome studies consistently show that the US is middle of the road in the world, and lags behind the modern social democracies.

The UK and Canadian systems definitely aren't perfect, but they're better, both in outcome and efficiency, than the US system.

Re:That stucks

[ceoyoyo]

Not sure I understand your reasoning. You're saying that because the US mostly private system is very, very expensive, the problem is not that the system is mostly private?

No, the US isn't going to be able to fix it's system with a little bit of legislation. Powerful interests, from physicians to pharma are going to be pissed off. But data from the whole world agrees that some sort of socialized system is both most efficient and most effective.

Re:Who is affected?

[decep]

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.

Re:Who is affected?

[b0s0z0ku]

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.

Re:Who is affected?

[Anonymous Coward]

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'

Re:Oxymoron Alert

[b0s0z0ku]

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.

This is the shit that will get peoples' attention

[Rick Schumann]

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.

Which is why we're not letting them do it

[rsilvergun]

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".