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Apple in talks with Aetna to bring Apple Watch to millions of customers

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Re: Apple in talks with Aetna to bring Apple Watch to millions of customers

#31

Post by pawadu »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #22
snarf21 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn't a horrible idea in the abstract but it seems likely sex would trigger data similar to most workouts. Also, there are people who eat healthy but don't have time for the gym. Conversely people who go to the gym everyday but mostly to try to burn up their Big Mac combo meal. From an insurance standpoint, I think HA1C is the only measure we could like use. Things like BMI, etc. are too varied based on genetics.

it seems likely sex would trigger data similar to most workouts Marketers would have a field day with that data.

At Runkeeper secret facilities, new year of 2019:

"This guy had increased heart rate followed by two minutes of physical activity... Joe, call Pfizer immediately!"

Re: Apple in talks with Aetna to bring Apple Watch to millions of customers

#32

Post by tomaskafka »

the-dude wrote: post #24
zimpenfish wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It'll be opt-in and this isn't a new thing - there's several UK insurers that'll give you discounts and bonuses for life insurance if you log workouts with their apps. This just makes it easier for both sides.

Until it becomes so ubiquitous it will be suspicious if you don't opt in.

r/suspicious/prohibitively expensive/, as we live in capitalism :)

Re: Apple in talks with Aetna to bring Apple Watch to millions of customers

#33

Post by gaius »

zimpenfish wrote: post #6
pawadu wrote: post #4

"Aetna now reportedly has ambitions to offer it to a wider field — adding large swaths of new health data to pull from and giving the health insurance company insight into the activities of its customers." Oh God no!

It'll be opt-in and this isn't a new thing - there's several UK insurers that'll give you discounts and bonuses for life insurance if you log workouts with their apps. This just makes it easier for both sides.

It's not a discount. It's a fine for not doing it.

Re: Apple in talks with Aetna to bring Apple Watch to millions of customers

#34

Post by tomaskafka »

Let's not forget that what's even more profitable than 'pricing insurance according to actual activity' (which is a nicely sounding PR cover up) is 'dropping people with early symptoms of a disease before it gets found by their doctor'. Which is unethical, but legal (right?) and extremely, extremely profitable.

Keep all premiums, drop people with cancer before they find out about it. And yes, if it's possible to infer pregnancy from shopping bills, then inferring a early health problem from a detailed 24/7 tracker data will be much easier.

And if you want to opt out of this? 'Here are our rates without a fitness tracker discount, they cost 5 times more, ok?'

Re: Apple in talks with Aetna to bring Apple Watch to millions of customers

#35

Post by drewg123 »

brlewis wrote: post #30
drewg123 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or to a machine, like Howard did on the Big Bang Theory: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnTXqqCVaSI

True for current exercise tracking. I don't know about the future "large swaths of new health data" though.

Well, perhaps a sufficiently complex machine that can fool their sensors, then.

Re: Apple in talks with Aetna to bring Apple Watch to millions of customers

#36

Post by m_mueller »

tomaskafka wrote: post #34

Let's not forget that what's even more profitable than 'pricing insurance according to actual activity' (which is a nicely sounding PR cover up) is 'dropping people with early symptoms of a disease before it gets found by their doctor'. Which is unethical, but legal (right?) and extremely, extremely profitable. Keep all premiums, drop people with cancer before they find out about it. And yes, if it's possible to infe…

.. which is why a government guaranteed insurance with good overall coverage is necessary. severe market defects in health care furthermore make dictated prices for services/prescriptions necessary. Adjusting Obamacare for that you end up with the Swiss system - still expensive bur at least effective and IMO fair.

Thinking about it, increasing information asymmetry due to machine learning applied to marketing may make heavy regulations necessary in most other sectors as well. Imagine software that tracks every person and figures out what they need when, identifies a monopoly of opportunity for any given good and them jacks up the price just for that person individually - in real time, while the person walks up to it.

Maybe that's how capitalism ends. Slavery 2.0.

Re: Apple in talks with Aetna to bring Apple Watch to millions of customers

#37

Post by tyingq »

zimpenfish wrote: post #6
pawadu wrote: post #4

"Aetna now reportedly has ambitions to offer it to a wider field — adding large swaths of new health data to pull from and giving the health insurance company insight into the activities of its customers." Oh God no!

It'll be opt-in and this isn't a new thing - there's several UK insurers that'll give you discounts and bonuses for life insurance if you log workouts with their apps. This just makes it easier for both sides.

I suspect they can detect more than just how active you are with this thing.

There are probably enough sensors to detect untreated sleep apnea for example. Or the pattern of arm movement, heartbeat, sitting in one spot, etc, associated with binge drinking. Or early onset of Parkinson's. Or perhaps false positives associated with these things.

I'm not personally willing to create the equivalent of an OBD-II port on my body and let an insurance company have unfettered access to the data. Insurance companies, at least in the US, have shown they aren't shy about finding ways to cut their costs at the expense of someone's well being.

Re: Apple in talks with Aetna to bring Apple Watch to millions of customers

#38

Post by zimpenfish »

Noos wrote: post #26
jeron wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

honestly I'd support a program where the more you work out the lower your insurance premiums would be. Pretty hard to cheat workouts with Apple Watch when it has a heart rate sensor and all that.

You're okay with corporations having extremely intrusive tools to track your behavior and control it through price for their own benefit?

For health (which we're talking about), life, or car insurance (since a bunch of UK insurers also have "safe driving" apps that earn you points, etc.), yeah, sure, why not?

Re: Apple in talks with Aetna to bring Apple Watch to millions of customers

#39

Post by coldtea »

zimpenfish wrote: post #38
Noos wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're okay with corporations having extremely intrusive tools to track your behavior and control it through price for their own benefit?

For health (which we're talking about), life, or car insurance (since a bunch of UK insurers also have "safe driving" apps that earn you points, etc.), yeah, sure, why not?

Because obviously they can use those to profit by dropping eg people they diagnose (or just infer statistically) with serious problems before they develop, or raise their prices, etc.

This is not about some extra win-win motivation to be healthier...

It's about turning risk (which is supposed to be what insurance companies are paid for) into rent-seeking...

Re: Apple in talks with Aetna to bring Apple Watch to millions of customers

#40

Post by laydn »

tomaskafka wrote: post #34

Let's not forget that what's even more profitable than 'pricing insurance according to actual activity' (which is a nicely sounding PR cover up) is 'dropping people with early symptoms of a disease before it gets found by their doctor'. Which is unethical, but legal (right?) and extremely, extremely profitable. Keep all premiums, drop people with cancer before they find out about it. And yes, if it's possible to infe…

This should quickly be declared illegal, if not already.

With the amount of data that is being gathered on us, coupled with advances in machine learning and statistical analysis, in the near future, "they" will be able to figure out high risk scenarios before we even know about it.

If they drop coverage or increase premiums based on this, they are no longer an "insurance company". I don't know what we would call them.

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