4 ms·

You make the category error of thinking this is about privacy. It's about control.

• jacquesm 10y ago
  It's about neither. It's about money. Insurers would love to be able to increase premiums based on pre-existing conditions and all the pre-emptive language of this bill notwithstanding this is opening the door a crack. And once the door is open it won't stop opening further. After all, if you don't want to cooperate with the 'voluntary' wellness program it's your own fault that your premiums will go up. After all, non-cooperation is a sure sign there is something you know that you don't want them to know (or so the argument will go...). Wellness, what a nice example of newspeak.
  • maxerickson 10y ago
    It looks like it is going to unravel, but the trajectory between 2000 and 2015 was that US insurance companies had to consider less and less information when pricing policies. I think it is hard to extrapolate that into a guaranteed bleak future.
    • jacquesm 10y ago
      Less information -> more fairness. The bleak future isn't there when it does not affect you but for people with pre-existing conditions (and that's a fair number) it just got a little bleaker. (Because having some life-long health issue is already bleak enough by my reckoning and such people should be aided rather than hindered in having an otherwise as normal life as possible. It's a lottery, no point in penalizing the losers even further.)
      • maxerickson 10y ago
        Yes, that's what I meant. The medium term trajectory has been towards a fairer system. A bill passing out of a committee now doesn't guarantee things will be worse in 2030. Even if the ACA is completely repealed it's hard to say where things will be in 8 years, never mind the forever.
        • jacquesm 10y ago
          That's true, but in the intermediary it will make peoples lives worse, possibly much worse.