The debate over Obamacare has had one positive effect that everyone can agree on: it’s educated Americans that insurance is about risk-pooling—according to a recent Bloomberg article—that is, both healthy and sick people need to participate if it’s going to be affordable for the sick.
The biggest challenge to risk-pooling is “sick people are much more likely to seek insurance, and have better information about their health than insurers do; coverage encourages people to use more health care, and makes containing costs harder,” reports Bloomberg. Enter big data, which can sort people based on patterns of behavior to predict their healthcare costs. The article explained that shopping history, education, criminal records, and personal finances all can be used to accurately predict health outcomes.
The collection of health data is growing at an estimated annual rate of 48 percent. The more predictive data becomes, the more risk-pooling falls apart: the riskiest patients could be forced out with high premiums and the healthy would pay more than insurance companies know they will end up costing.
Bloomberg columnist Cathy O’Neil argues that universal health insurance, under which everyone is covered in a Medicare-like system, is the only way to maintain the necessary risk-sharing.
In the meantime, transparency in healthcare cost would go a long way toward helping anyone, regardless of their health risk or level of insurance coverage, get the care they need—because it would enable them to price-shop for the most affordable care. Healthclx.com delivers that transparency, uncovering the hidden costs of healthcare and putting it online for consumers who already seek price information before making nearly every other purchase. Healthclx empowers patients to make smart decisions about their health and their money.
Source –
Bloomberg: “Big Data Is Coming to Take Your Health Insurance“
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