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Comment by elpakal | Hacker News Reader

A totally self interested article with little substance. big health insurance's biggest customers are not consumers but businesses who provide health plans to their employees

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Maybe that is true now, but nearly every Democrat running for the White House has either a Medicare for All or public option plan that would essentially eliminate or reduce our dependence on employer based healthcare over time (some on a faster timeline than others).

MfA would create an insurance carrier that would cover %90+ of all americans and would quickly drive down prices as a monosopony buyer.

"Total individual market enrollment, measured on an average monthly basis, increased from 10.6 million in 2013 to a peak of 17.4 million in 2015, before declining to 13.8 million in 2018."Quoted from https://www.kff.org/private-insurance/issue-brief/data-note-...

Bingo. I'll say the unicorn is the group that can bend hipaa such that customer data can be more easily exchanged between providers. There is already a group making a product that most health insurance companies utilize for this and they dont know it.

Before I left the industry I saw many dropping third party analytics and building their own solutions in need of more m&a dollars from declining membership nationally.

What if you do not want your information exchanged? Or recorded at all?

Information wants to be free so much that it leaks!

Given experian experiance, I would prefer the option to keep a thumbdrive with me. If I lose it? My fault. Exams can be redone. Printouts can be provided. But you can't fix a leak.

Healthcare providers are unwilling to plug in a thumbdrive from a patient because it could contain malware. Secure online exchange is the only practical approach to health information exchange. Most providers will allow patients to opt out, but this puts your health at risk. Doctors often need to see your historical chart in order to make an accurate diagnosis and prescribe effective treatment. You can't always just redo an exam, test, or imaging study.

I want to opt out of any collection of data - not just the exchange of data. Because the best way to make sure nothing will leak is to have no records in the first place.

I accept all the risk. But there is no freedom to do that - leaving the thumbdrive aside, by just bringing papers that I would keep - not them.

Healthcare providers have to keep records both to deliver effective care and protect themselves against malpractice liability. It is unreasonable of you to expect them not to do so. Those risks aren't yours to accept.

There is utterly nothing you can do to prevent the american heathcare apparatus from obtaining and sharing your heath data. It will be exchanged between your state agency, care provider and insurers constantly. Your insurer will likely de-identify data in the event of a leak. The other two may not (save regulatory requirements) I have first hand experience here.

I think it's happening. When a friend signed up with one hospital, their diagnoses & medicines subscribed showed up from other unrelated hospitals and clinics too. It wasn't a full import, but it was a lot!

Also with most lab work being done by quest & labcorp, I think that is pretty close to being portable for the %80 case too.

I think this is what apple health is also trying to do.

It is happening. They do have your info. Sites like Web MD aren't making things up out of thin air...

Meta: The gratuitous use of italics is also a bit painful to read.

Thanks for that man! I edited that out those parts are just bold now, the italics on LinkedIn look way more prominent than the one on medium.

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