Apple in Talks With Insurance Companies Over HealthKit Partnership

[theshirko]

American
you buy into all kind of money wasting stuff (vegetarianism to save the animals, fair trade to save the farmers, organic to save insects, hybris to save the environment, missionaries to save poor countries, young soldiers dying to save freedom)
yet none of you is willing to pay taxes to save another American. and you are willing to sell your soul for a discount on health care. Makes me wonder what are they really teaching in school to be so easily manipulatable ? having education is about being smart and highly critical of BS, and aware of true intentions.

 

[juanm]

Don't you also turn away care like hip replacements for those deemed to old? What about the death panels? It may only sound rosy cuz you are still young.

Like anywhere else, a disproportionate amount of healthcare cost happens in the last years, however there are no death panels and yes, hip replacements are very expensive, but again, even though I haven't needed any, in the case of (much) older family members, they've gotten them.

 

[zephonic]

Right.

With a for-profit healthcare industry free of regulatory oversight, what could go wrong?


I'm not sure I like the new Apple. Touch ID, HealthKit, I don't know...

 

[PsykX]

"We see you're getting fatter. Your rates just went up..."

Yeah... I don't have anything to hide, but I'm not sure I want my insurance company to know every single detail about my health.

 

[LiamJ]

What a terrible idea

I recently had a discussion with a friend who was looking for opportunities to present to a client in the area of technology leveraged solutions. He was suggesting the idea that a certain major Australia health insurance fund would may be interested in using health tracker data to offer a value add service to it's customers. My response was "that's a terrible idea, I don't think anybody wants their health insurance fund to build the capability to vary premiums based on super accurate health information". If Apple is looking at this solution they would want to be very careful about having a big red off switch.

 

[needfx]

insurance premiums? muhahha

 

[Ichabod.]

Interesting. I wonder if the tech sector's influence will be successful in this area over the next several years.

 

[matrix07]

Keep believing that lie.

What lie? I talked about the only information we had, since clearly no one has any idea what Apple's doing.

In a report on rising medical costs and partnerships between insurance providers, corporate employers, and fitness device makers, Bloomberg suggests that Apple has spoken with insurance companies about HealthKit, but no specifics on the conversation were provided.

An example of a partnership between a fitness company, an insurance provider, and a corporation is the agreement between Fitbit and oil company BP. As explained by Bloomberg, BP gave employees the option to wear a Fitbit fitness tracking device to earn points resulting in cheaper health insurance.

If you have more information, pls share.

 

[Glassed Silver]

I hate to be THAT guy, but I doubt that Steve Jobs would have approved of this.

Glassed Silver:mac

 

[Robin4]

Looking at it from the insurance company point of view, the savings in paying hospital bills for a couple of patient's operations versus having those claimants avoid ending up in the hospital in the first place, may add up to hundreds of thousands of dollars.

No, not a friend of ins. companies in any way. Universal coverage would have been the best system for us.

 

[Ieo]

The way I see this playing out is apple will work with healthcare providers and insurance companies to come up with some metric that is created locally on your device that the insurance company can use to determine if you qualify for a discount.

apple would be shooting themselves in the foot if they proposed giving access to all of your health metrics to insurance companies (and I think it may even be illegal) - Instead they'll come up with some way to average positive health into a "health index" number or some other ********. Things like BP, body fat percentage, glucose readings, respiration, activity, etc will be thrown into some sort of anonymizing algorithm to come up with a single score by which health insurance companies can decide to give you a discount. It would be voluntary just like those little driving habit monitors car insurance companies try to get you to install, and they'll almost certainly make it clear that they'll never penalize you for bad scores - only incentivize good scores.

At least, that's how they would do it if they were smart. I'm still not sure if it's all that revolutionary or necessary...just another gimmick to convince people to buy an iwatch.

 

[ephemeralreason]

The more active you are means you are more likely to get hurt also

Only if you're doing "more active" wrong.

 

[senseless]

Henry Ford would have been all over this.

 

[ephemeralreason]

I agree with the above poster: we should just have single payer insurance. Sadly and irrationally not going to happen soon. What I really find myopic about a number of posts here is the idea that the problem with this concept is that issue is the health insurance companies will raise rates for unhealthy people as if remaining unhealthy is such an appealing choice. Better health is an inherently positive end and if lower rates are an incentive for this then that's a good thing.

 

[AppleScruff1]

I think I'd rather have my doctor know about my health than an insurance company. Somehow I don't think an insurance company has my best interests at heart, whether it be auto, health, life, homeowners or anything else.

 

[Technarchy]

What lie? I talked about the only information we had, since clearly no one has any idea what Apple's doing.

Here is what we know: Health costs are ever increasing by big amounts, people are living longer, and more people are demanding healthcare, and even with insurance most patients can't afford to pay for major procedures.

Under those conditions the odds of healthcosts ever coming down is nill. They can shift around the cost, but shrink it? Unlikely.

 

[matrix07]

Here is what we know: Health costs are ever increasing by big amounts, people are living longer, and more people are demanding healthcare, and even with insurance most patients can't afford to pay for major procedures.

Under those conditions the odds of healthcosts ever coming down is nill. They can shift around the cost, but shrink it? Unlikely.

Again, the only information we have for the time being is it indeed can reduce cost.

An example of a partnership between a fitness company, an insurance provider, and a corporation is the agreement between Fitbit and oil company BP. As explained by Bloomberg, BP gave employees the option to wear a Fitbit fitness tracking device to earn points resulting in cheaper health insurance.

I don't know why you keep pushing your "guess" as fact.

 

[Jakexb]

Don't you also turn away care like hip replacements for those deemed to old? What about the death panels? It may only sound rosy cuz you are still young.

Death panels, really? When someone who isn't you is paying, someone else decides what to pay for -- that's the same in private and public insurance. At least in a public system, there's no profit motive. And in either system, no one is stopping you from paying for it yourself.

 

[yzp]

-EMF Alert -EMF Alert -EMF Alert -EMF Alert -EMF Alert-

you gotta think outside the box ...

 

[Nevaborn]

Bad move by Apple. People will not get any benefit from this, there will be no discounts like others have said. Only more ways for a company to not pay out.

What worries me is how US centric Apple is becoming. Sure home turf will always get stuff first. But it seems more often than not of late all things are being designed for the US market and not the global one, so when it reaches other countries it doesn't do what it would id you lived in the States.

 

[Ironduke]

We're paying it somehow, Taxpayers pay. Money doesn't grow on treas

nowhere near the american levels as their system is profit based and everyone wants a piece

 

[elee]

I know I should give Apple the benefit of doubt but it is plain scary to see healthkit and insurance company in the same sentence. I hope Apple truly knows what she's doing and approaching this for user benefit and not be deceived by typical insurance company tactics.

 

[eroyce]

I don't see it like most of you

I am surprised by the amount of resistance people are putting up to this idea.

First, you all are wearing tinfoil hats thinking that insurance companies are big brother trying to track your every move. They are normal people doing normal jobs, and they aren't out to get you. I'm sure they collect data and make pricing decision for large populations of people based on that, but if you are living a life style that would actually draw the attention of an insurance company, maybe you need to re-consider some of your choices.

Second, yes - people who choose to cost less should pay less. Just like car insurance, just like life insurance, just like toll-roads. If I go to the gym every week instead of staying home smoking and watching t.v., I would love to save $20 and I have no problem with people who are less healthy (by choice) paying that extra $20. I support universal health, (in particular for all the people who are unhealthy for reasons outside of their control - healthcare should be a moral obligation of society), but we (in the U.S.) aren't there yet, so let me have the opportunity to cut my medical insurance premium by making healthy choices.

I want to get an annual physical, to walk 5,000 steps a day, and to visit the gym a few times a month, and I'd support if Apple can make it easier for me to take financial advantage of these choices. I would love if I could tie together my fitness activities, my medical records, and see how it all comes together.

Honestly, I don't make that healthy of choices right now, and something like this just might help. HealthKit could be a powerful tool, and I fully support as much integration as they can muster. If you don't like it, don't use the app. It's just an app on your phone.

 

[GRSM-IE]

Second, yes - people who choose to cost less should pay less. Just like car insurance, just like life insurance, just like toll-roads. If I go to the gym every week instead of staying home smoking and watching t.v., I would love to save $20 and I have no problem with people who are less healthy (by choice) paying that extra $20.

Honestly, I don't make that healthy of choices right now, and something like this just might help. HealthKit could be a powerful tool, and I fully support as much integration as they can muster. If you don't like it, don't use the app. It's just an app on your phone.

The problem is you will never save $20 - you will be told that IF you use this app and they can monitor your health you won't pay extra $20. That's the way it works. And once it's out there there's no way back - using the app will be obligatory IF you don't want to pay EXTRA. And as someone already mentioned - you won't care until you get older and/or your health get a little bit worse - then they will know that immediately and you'll start paying EXTRA.

 

[alephnull12]

This is the worst idea ever.

Just because you can do something, doesn't mean you should.

It would be much simpler, more effective and reliable for insurance companies to have customers stop by once a year to the insurers office to be weighed, and then just charge them based on that.

Great, so now insurance companies are not allowed to discriminate against me because I'm a fatty, but they do get to discriminate against me because I prefer to sit or lie down rather than stand, or because I don't want a phone in my pocket tracking my every move. Orwellian.

Yet another project coming from Apple for the purposes of poorly dressed politics. They had best keep at arms length from whatever insurance companies want to do with this information.

Retards.

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[/COLOR]

Here is what we know: Health costs are ever increasing by big amounts, people are living longer, and more people are demanding healthcare, and even with insurance most patients can't afford to pay for major procedures.

Under those conditions the odds of healthcosts ever coming down is nill. They can shift around the cost, but shrink it? Unlikely.

They can't shrink health care costs overall.

Even if interventions like these result in meaningful changes in behavior (which they probably won't to a great extent), this overall doesn't necessarily translate into meaningfully better health for the vast majority (it won't have much effect at all), the best it can do is save insurance companies a little money. But in the end, society pays back the price and more, because a long-lived elderly population results in larger costs to society overall -- in the form of Medicare costs, Social Security, nursing home care, and a lot of other things.

There is nothing fundamentally wrong with living well and dying young.

Sure, an insurance company might succeed in saving a small amount of money (but they probably won't), but this is only possible because they get to unload their elderly customers onto society once they turn 65. Then, taxpayers eat the cost on the back end.

That's only if it works. If the interventions are overall ineffective, then you've just wasted time and money. At best, it serves as a phony, dressed up form of price discrimination that insurers can use to squeeze additional bits of money out of people, without really improving much of anything overall.