<story><title>Be Healthy or Else: How Corporations Became Obsessed with Fitness Tracking</title><url>https://backchannel.com/be-healthy-or-else-how-corporations-became-obsessed-with-fitness-tracking-b0c019faff8d#.wes4gmn96</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>byuu</author><text>My employer&amp;#x2F;provider (Blue Cross) offered a $100 discount on insurance premiums in return for me taking a vial of my own blood and mailing it off to them for testing.&lt;p&gt;Although I am in (mostly) good physical shape, I found it beyond creepy and refused to do it. But I worry about them increasing the discount in the future. It&amp;#x27;ll be harder to say no when it&amp;#x27;s $1000, or $2000. And let&amp;#x27;s be real: it&amp;#x27;s not a discount, it&amp;#x27;s a penalty for when you don&amp;#x27;t do what you&amp;#x27;re told.&lt;p&gt;And given how my insurance doesn&amp;#x27;t even cover a 30-minute ER visit without sending me a bill in the mail for $1700, it&amp;#x27;s hardly even worth having insurance at all. At least at my age.</text></comment>
<story><title>Be Healthy or Else: How Corporations Became Obsessed with Fitness Tracking</title><url>https://backchannel.com/be-healthy-or-else-how-corporations-became-obsessed-with-fitness-tracking-b0c019faff8d#.wes4gmn96</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>pliny</author><text>&amp;gt;If he chooses not to participate in the program, Abrams must pay an extra $50 per month toward his premium.&lt;p&gt;Is he paying $50 more for not participating, or getting a $50 discount for participating?&lt;p&gt;If it&amp;#x27;s the latter (Anthem insurance doesn&amp;#x27;t change their premiums, but now rewards people for using preventative medicine), then how could anyone object? It really is a win-win, and people who don&amp;#x27;t want to participate are no worse off.&lt;p&gt;But, if Anthem Insurance aren&amp;#x27;t trying to motivate healthier behavior, but only trying to identify people who are already trying to become healthier (or stay healthy) and lower their premiums in order to remain more competitive, then it&amp;#x27;s the former. Workers are being penalized because P(Not trying to be healthy | Doesn&amp;#x27;t participate in the wellness program) is greater than P(Not trying to be healthy).&lt;p&gt;What this actually means: The trying-to-be-healthy population are no longer subsidizing the not-trying-to-be-healthy population. I don&amp;#x27;t know if this is a bad outcome, I remember hearing an interview with Cathy O&amp;#x27;Neil (the author) where she applies the same rhetoric and logic to loan approval and to criminal sentencing, in both cases she ignores the fact that going from the status quo (in this case, one where wellness programs exist) to her preferred reality (in this case, one where wellness programs do not exist) tends to take a lot of innocent people who are winners in the status quo (in this case, people who try to stay healthy, and enjoy lower premiums) and makes them into losers (since now they have to pay the same premiums as people who don&amp;#x27;t use preventative medicine).&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Except, as it happens, this regimen already exists and it’s called humiliation and fat-shaming. Have someone tell you you’re overweight, or pay a major fine.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m not overweight, so maybe I don&amp;#x27;t have the right perspective on this, but how terrible could &amp;quot;having a doctor tell you that you&amp;#x27;re overweight&amp;quot; be? Like, the only context I can understand this quote is that &amp;quot;Have someone tell you you&amp;#x27;re overweight&amp;quot; is some sort of grievous injury, and not just trivially inconvenient.</text></comment>