These program will all be illegal at the end of the year anyway, so don't invest much in hacks.
Smartphone cradle used to cheat “10k steps/day” health insurance discounts
111–120 of 215 posts
Re: Smartphone cradle used to cheat “10k steps/day” health insurance discounts
#112Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you have statistics to indicate biking is inherently more dangerous than other activities or are you just repeating a certain assumption you have?
This is interesting... I am in my 20s and bike ~20 miles per day. Over the last 5 years I have had 3 broken bones due to bike accidents including one which required an ambulance ride. With few exceptions, I only go to the doctor for bike-related injuries and my annual physical. To my health insurance provider, do the benefits to my cardiovascular system and general fitness offset the cost to treat my injuries? I am g…
Someone who ran the equivalent of ~20 miles per day (a 5K per day, maybe?) for 5 years would probably have their share of expensive medical issues too. Runners get fractures, they get in traffic accidents, they get pneumonia, etc. So in a straight comparison between running vs. biking as far as the insurance company is concerned, it's probably a wash.
Re: Smartphone cradle used to cheat “10k steps/day” health insurance discounts
#113I've always found that anytime time a financial outcome is tied to some sort of behavior incentive, weird behaviors come out. This especially comes out in sales, where whether you like it or not, individuals will typically optimize for the best financial outcome, which is not always explicitly connected to what's best for the company.
Congrats, you've learned the Secret of Management.
From here on out, your career consists of optimizing methods of manipulating that effect for your benefit, the benefit of your team, and the benefit of your company, in that order.
Re: Smartphone cradle used to cheat “10k steps/day” health insurance discounts
#114I did something similar in college. A company paid cash for installing software that displayed ads on the bottom of your monitor. It qualified your ad viewing activity based on mouse movement. At night I would open the software, wrap my mouse cord around an oscillating desk fan, then go to bed. Earned myself $50/month
I remember the AllAdvantage.com cheat as well. It became so popular to game that one that not only were novel tactics like yours employed, but automatic mouse hijacking apps for Windows made some headway for those that didn't want to sit and click ads ad nauseum. I may have made a quick buck on this back in the early 2000s.
click ads ad nauseum
There is a browser extension that does this for you:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10611594
It was removed from Chrome's appstore, so it must be very effective... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13327228 ...and shows very clearly whose side they're on.
Re: Smartphone cradle used to cheat “10k steps/day” health insurance discounts
#115I wonder how many people use stuff like this to cheat the system? I remember seeing someone on reddit bragging about attaching their Fitbit to a reciprocating saw to get more steps than his wife. I couldn't figure out why it was that important, but with insurance discounts, I can definitely see the financial incentives.
People are willing to go quite far sometimes: https://www.reddit.com/r/canada/comments/8fu7wi/albertan_cha...
Gender is a state of mind in Canada and therefore Alberta.
If it catches on, it will probably stop working once the statistics reveal gender-changed MtoF's to be just as high in accident rates as regular males.
Re: Smartphone cradle used to cheat “10k steps/day” health insurance discounts
#116These program will all be illegal at the end of the year anyway, so don't invest much in hacks.
I certainly hope so. Fuck that, the insurer chosen by my company doesn't get to be this intrusive with me. I simply do not trust them.
My current insurance hasn't tried this yet, but I'm sure they will. They're going to hate me by the time I get done redlining the agreement and sending it back, and that's just for starters.
We are going to see a ton of tertiary effects of all this data sloshing around, and I really don't think people are going to like them. Especially wrt insurance and invasive surveillance like this. To drive, the state requires it, and so any time-and-place data and so on will be effectively legally required to be shared under whatever terms insurance companies choose.
Re: Smartphone cradle used to cheat “10k steps/day” health insurance discounts
#117These program will all be illegal at the end of the year anyway, so don't invest much in hacks.
Do you have a source on that? Also, what country?
Re: Smartphone cradle used to cheat “10k steps/day” health insurance discounts
#118EconTalk from three weeks ago was The Tyranny of Metrics[1] about how when metrics are tied to compensation, they often have disastrous consequences, even to the point of achieving the opposite of the desired effect.
[1] http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2018/04/jerry_muller_on.htm...
Re: Smartphone cradle used to cheat “10k steps/day” health insurance discounts
#119Next up: GPS cradles to proxy your driving habits into granddaddy mode to get cheap car insurance.
[deleted]
Re: Smartphone cradle used to cheat “10k steps/day” health insurance discounts
#120Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because I dislike the idea of insurance companies nosing in on my private life and telling me how to spend my time. I'm sure someone will object that participation is voluntary, but I expect it to go along the familiar voluntary with perks -> penalties if not participating -> outright mandatory progression.
I also have a stubbornness gene in me that encourages me to spitefully resist all attempts to meddle in my lifestyle by sanctimonious blowhards that couldn't care less about my actual well being. The last contact I had with such a voluntary insurance program, it consisted entirely of the insured calling in to a call center, to have someone nag them to create health goals and then nag more to make progress. No thanks;…
Oh, I thought that gene was Irish. Best way to get me to do something is to forbid it. I started flossing the day they stopped recommending it.