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Comment by pawadu | Hacker News Reader

"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!

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I am against it not for privacy reasons but instead because it is an expensive option for what it offers. there are many lower cost options that can perform the monitoring they claim. People get mad at the cost of insurance, well here is one major reason why.

This would almost be as bad as when the local police forces and post offices near us got Segways. that and when schools were bamboozled into buying iPads for all students.

Apple is padding their bottom line, nothing more. Aetna is going along because it must make some higher ups feel good by association.

For a while, the story was that watches were going to take over the world. Now, the story is that the overstock has to be got rid of somehow.

Apple Watch sales are up 50%

https://techcrunch.com/2017/08/01/apple-watch-sales-up-over-...

I’d say they are simply trying to grow their market.

"Now, the story is that the overstock has to be got rid of somehow." "Apple Watch sales are up 50%"

These two statements are not in opposition if lots of watches are selling at a deep discount. When I google "apple watch amazon" the top link is a used model, second is a discounted series 1.

Yet Apple is #3 after Xiaomi and fitbit, with more Asian companies closing in.

I think Apple needs this deal more than they admit.

Presumably that's #3 in "market share" or "units sold" (assuming both Xiaomi and Fitbit accurately report the latter) and not "profit"?

Units shipped: https://www.canalys.com/newsroom/apple-falls-third-place-q2-...

I don't think Apple reports units shipped. Fitbit does. I don't know about Xiaomi. The numbers are a mix of reported units and estimated units.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

You generally get what you measure, so be careful to measure what you want to get. Isn't elevated heart rate connected to better health outcomes no matter what physical activity it comes from? Why should the insurance company care if some of it is sex instead of, say, running?

it seems likely sex would trigger data similar to most workouts

Marketers would have a field day with that data.

>it seems likely sex would trigger data similar to most workouts

Accelerometers and GPS would allow them to narrow down specific types and patterns of sex as well. Lots of sex in cheap motels == high risk. Correlating customers together..this one has HIV, and appears to be having sex with this customer == high risk. Fun.

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!"

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...

If the insurance scheme is public, incentivizing individuals to remain healthy in order to lower the cost for everyone is a civil duty.

Vitality (in the UK) link with a whole range of things - Health, Fitbit, Garmin, Polar, Moves, Nokia, etc.

Although you get rewards from them (Starbucks drinks, cinema tickets, etc.) rather than straight discounts on your insurance.

It's super easy. Strap it to someone else.

Or to a machine, like Howard did on the Big Bang Theory:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnTXqqCVaSI

That reminds me, back during the Tamagotchi craze (which coincided with the Pokemon craze) there was a virtual pet Pikachu that rewarded you for walking (it was a pedometer) and the screen would show Pikachu walking while you were. It was pretty cute. Well, it wasn't long before my little brother figured out how to "cheat" He put it on the washer. (I think dryer worked as well)

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.

You could cheat by giving the watch to someone else to do a workout for you?

I imagine someone working out with like 6 fitness trackers attached to them.

Strap one to your largish dog with a heart rate close to human range.

What I would be afraid of, here, is that if there are signs that big data can uncover that peel out some catastrophic disease from your workout data that would mean your insurance company knows you're very ill long before you do... It would extremely tempting not to do something about that knowledge that helps the company even if it hurts a soon-to-be-dead-anyway person.

Right?!! The beginning of the end - so long, and thanks for all the fish!

But why not. If you're sitting up all night drinking energy drinks and smoking cigarettes while Uber drops off more McDonalds while I'm out running, working out, stretching regularly...

Why should I subsidise your insurance?

Isn't that how insurance works though? There are always going to be people who don't take care of themselves. Instead of trying to shame them like this, why not increase awareness? Why not reduce subsidies on corn, meat and instead (or at least in addition to) subsidize vegetables and fruits?

If I'm sitting at home, avoiding skin cancer and excessive wear & tear, while you're running around ruining your joints and breathing car exhaust...

...why should I subsidise _your_ insurance?

(really, America is so weird. Even in our rather terrible non-single-payer insurance system it would be illegal to base premiums on lifestyle. Insurance cost is decided by law, you may buy some extras, the end).

I don't think your parenthetical remark is at all correct: I've received insurance reimbursements for going to the gym X number of times in the US.

I do not live in the US. Those reimbursement is what sounds really weird.

Next thing you know you will pay higher premiums when you decide to have children with someone of whom some algorithm says is a poor match with your genes. Why should I subsidise your "inferior" child?

Why should the young subsidize the old. Why should healthy subsidize the chronically ill. Why should anyone subsidize anyone else at all. You should only pay what you use and nothing more.

/s [this tag necessary because idiots seriously believe this]

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