No surprise, since it is now much easier to collect and sort public and commercial records of people and groups of people. But that could mean a greater level of individualized sales and service that may be disadvantageous to the consumer who may not know what is going on in this respect.
Is that a big surprise? Nope.
Not even talking about those sheeple who sign up for “wellness rewards” offered by employers… get a free Fitbit if you link it to our app! You just gave consent to the employer or whoever provided the app to track your every move.
You would think it is no brainer for the insurers, but you would be surprised how those big insurers are not leveraging data. It is the more progressive, technology savvy insurers that are able to do more granulated/efficient pricing.
I’m SO glad we have our family plan that is with a megacorp that has LOTS of employees, many of whom are young and healthy, so the rates are staying pretty steady. This is a scary and dark time for many who just want coverage against bad health situations, most of which they have no control over. I’m also very nervous about S ever leaving his huge employer who gives him excellent health insurance that he can choose from a wide array of insurers–glad he has good income but also really like that he has a choice of excellent insurance options.
Benefit of ACA and the exchange - such details haven’t been factored into pricing. In an ACA absent healthcare world, I have no doubt all this info will be used against consumers to the the insurers’ benefit.
I’d have to find my fit bit in my junk drawer first. 
Keep all of your business to yourself. NOTHING is “free”. Nothing is a good deal for you if you only sign up here. No apps are worth selling all of your personal information to whomever has the knowledge to unlock it and use it. Lock it down in every way you still have.
Some employers have attempted to force that “wellness” thing on the employees and even the family members of the employee, if they are are also covered. By law, it is still voluntary, but they were not making that clear to employees. Penalties are forbidden (last I checked).
Also, an unintended consequence of ACA. (ACA requires medical providers to computerize nearly everything, making it easy to share big data.)
Canada did this many years ago. A Canadian doctor I knew had information on every breast cancer patient in the country. It was used for epidemiology research though.
“A Canadian doctor I knew had information on every breast cancer patient in the country. It was used for epidemiology research though.”
As far as you know…
It’s very hard to protect this type of data once it’s out there. Just ask Facebook. A year ago if someone asked Facebook about how personal user data was used, they’d honestly and with a straight face reply that data is shared only when users agree, that the companies that have access to the data only have aggregated information that can’t be linked to an individual user, that data is well controlled and privacy protected.
From @TranquilMind “Penalties are forbidden (last I checked).”
Our company was sold in February. We had excellent insurance, low premiums, low copays, low max out of pocket. Well, no more! When we switch in January, we will have huge premiums, huge deductible and huge max out of pocket. Worst of all, drugs come out of your deductible - no copay drug plan.
Anyway, back to the topic - the premiums are huge, but you can consent to health screening and for each “health goal” you meet, they will lower your premium by a step. Tobacco use, blood pressure, cholesterol, glucose, and BMI.
They may not be calling it a penalty, but it sure seems like one…
Gosh… if only there were some way to make it so that insurance companies can’t charge you more based on x, y, or z. I wonder if any other country has figured out how to do this?
I’m screwed if companies are allowed to charge different people different rates. My rates will go through the roof.
Initially, our insurer was offering incentives for giving consent and info—filling out surveys and they’d give you a $50 card for use on health things—Rx or copays or OTC meds or contact solutions.
They then started asking more and more questions and I decided it was none of their business do we have stopped participating. Initially, they were fine with you skipping Qs or saying don’t know blood pressure, etc. After awhile, surveys kept prodding you to fully complete everything. No thanks!
I hate how data can be and is misused and used to justify jacking up prices on folks who really can’t afford it. We are actually MUCH healthier than we appear on paper and are relatively low consumers of medical care considering our documented chronic health issues.
This does NOTHING to promote health. Wellness programs like this do not make employees healthier. If you’re tempted to chirp that it stands to reason that incentives like this make people quit smoking or lose weight, don’t. This has been studied over and over again. People keep hoping to find an effect, and they keep failing to find an effect.
All these wellness programs do is discriminate against people who are less healthy. If that is your goal, then you should be super in favor of wellness programs.
Study randomly gave some employees access to an employer wellness program, and compared them to employees who randomly did not have access.
https://www.nber.org/papers/w24229?utm_campaign=ntw&utm_medium=email&utm_source=ntw
Do employees with access to a wellness program have lower health costs? NO.
Are employees with access to a wellness program healthier than employees without access? NO.
Do employees with access to a wellness program go to the gym more? NO.
Who signs up for wellness programs? Employees who were already healthy and had low health costs.
So we’re talking about something that doesn’t make people healthier and doesn’t save money. One previous study had shown that employees who signed up for a wellness program ended up healthier than employees who didn’t. Right. Because they started out healthier.
@“Cardinal Fang” I agree - it’s simply a way to have some people pay higher premiums than others.
Those are silly conclusions. Access to a program has nothing to do with it. The question to be answered is whether a behavior change can be accomplished. Want people to engage in healthier behaviors – make them pay for their insurance and care. Once they see the costs, they will change and the population will become healthier.
In the case of wellness programs, the question has been answered. The answer is No.
We need to distinguish values from facts here. Suppose you think that people who smoke should pay more for their insurance than people who don’t smoke, because people who don’t smoke should be rewarded for their virtue in not smoking. OK, that’s a value. That’s a defensible position.
Suppose you think that people who smoke should pay more for their insurance because paying more will make them quit smoking. That is a factual position. It is factually incorrect, and you should stop believing it.
One would expect that incentives (not necessarily employee wellness programs, or even costly medical care or medical insurance) would have some effect on people’s health habits. But evidently incentives may not be that effective for many (e.g. people with miserable smoking-caused diseases refusing to stop smoking).
You would expect so, but incentives work a lot less well than you’d think. Raising the prices of cigarettes makes many people quit, but there are some who are resistant, and it turns out some of the resistance is genetic. Some people are genetically cursed to have a tough time quitting smoking, just as some people are genetically cursed to be susceptible to alcoholism.