Dropping insurance coverage for smoking-caused illnesses would also be a good form of discouragement.
Wow...that is officially the dumbest and most ignorant thing you've ever posted. You think people smoke, with the thought process of, "Well if it makes me sick at least I have insurance for medical care"....????????
Wow...that is officially the dumbest and most ignorant thing you've ever posted. You think people smoke, with the thought process of, "Well if it makes me sick at least I have insurance for medical care"....????????
Wow. I don't like ts's histrionics much, but I'll defend him here. Just like raising cigarette taxes has reduced smoking, raising the cost of smoking in other ways should have the same effect. Pretty basic economics. Of course most smokers don't contemplate their distant future every time they pick up a cigarette, but a drumbeat of stories about smokers having to pay for their own chemo and cancer drugs would have to have *some* effect.
That said, I think there's approximately zero chance that insurance companies will stop covering smoking-related illnesses, many of which may be caused by other things. Another option: charging smokers bigger premium differentials (already done for life & health insurance in many states, but the difference could be bigger) might make the future costs more apparent to smokers in the present.
Wow...that is officially the dumbest and most ignorant thing you've ever posted. You think people smoke, with the thought process of, "Well if it makes me sick at least I have insurance for medical care"....????????
No, but talk about dumb and ignorant things to post. There’s absolutely no explanation for that nonsense. Quoted to remain an embarrassment to you for years to come.
If anyone thinks that a "Fitness Focus" is going to do anything for Apple other than drive it into the ground, they've got another thing coming.
"Fitness" and everything related to it is not going to sell devices, or encourage software upgrades. Fitness as a tentpole feature of software or hardware will be about as popular as the "enhancements to Siri" were in iOS 6.
No wonder Nike went bankrupt when they came out with FuelBand...
"Nike Inc.'s Equipment division saw an 18% rise in profits for the 2012 fiscal year after introduction of the Nike+ FuelBand, in comparison to the -1% loss during the 2011 fiscal year.[7] Before the FuelBand's official American release, it was open for pre-order online, and was sold out both times within the same day.[8][9] A consumer on Twitter timed one of the pre-order periods to be exactly 4 minutes before all FuelBands were sold out and Nikestore.com was overloaded due to customer traffic.[10] Nike+ FuelBands were being sold on eBay during the first couple of months after pre-order for approximately double the retail price.[11]"
Wow. I don't like ts's histrionics much, but I'll defend him here. Just like raising cigarette taxes has reduced smoking, raising the cost of smoking in other ways should have the same effect. Pretty basic economics. Of course most smokers don't contemplate their distant future every time they pick up a cigarette, but a drumbeat of stories about smokers having to pay for their own chemo and cancer drugs would have to have *some* effect.
That said, I think there's approximately zero chance that insurance companies will stop covering smoking-related illnesses, many of which may be caused by other things. Another option: charging smokers bigger premium differentials (already done for life & health insurance in many states, but the difference could be bigger) might make the future costs more apparent to smokers in the present.
Getting people to quit is not a black and white thing. If you are going to deny them health care, or charge them for treatment, how about simply shutting down the tobacco companies ? Not quite straight forward, I think, but I'd be more in Favor of penalizing businesses that make their fortunes from preying on people's weaknesses knowing full well it's killing them and overloading health care.
Getting people to quit is not a black and white thing. If you are going to deny them health care, or charge them for treatment, how about simply shutting down the tobacco companies ? Not quite straight forward, I think, but I'd be more in Favor of penalizing businesses that make their fortunes from preying on people's weaknesses knowing full well it's killing them and overloading health care.
Funny how countries like France and Japan have a higher proportion of smokers, yet have half the health care costs and least the same -- if not better health outcomes -- than the US does.
Funny how countries like France and Japan have a higher proportion of smokers, yet have half the health care costs and least the same -- if not better health outcomes -- than the US does.
Clearly Americans should keep smoking, and fix whatever the other problem is. Smoking must not be a problem at all.
For years Apple TV has just been a hobby, and now in the last few weeks it has become a full-fledged product on the Apple Store online. I wonder if this is to make room for a new hobby? Health is a whole new area for Apple and it's not clear that exercise based product will necessarily be successful, so I wonder if Healthbook will be announced as the new hobby?
Anything hardware wise is mostly profitless vaporware for Google, except for their in house servers.
Actually if you would have taken a look at Google's revenue you would have known that it is not all vaporware and that an increasing amount of revenue comes from hardware sales. Just in 2013 its revenues from hardware doubled to 13% of the total revenue.
It looks like it that Google is looking more and more to hardware sales to boost its revenue, it is well aware that it can't keep this growth up with just advertising revenue, while Apple is looking more and more to revenue via targeted advertising (iAd) in order to not be completely dependable on hardware sales but also provide services. Strange how that works right? When companies reach such high points like Apple and Google have it is important to diversify. Else if you keep doing one thing, if that one thing slows down you will quickly have decreasing stock value.
That's an amazing statistic, but the amount that the US adult population has increased since then, 20% is still probably close to the same number of people who smoked back then. Proportionately less but still the same amount.
Maybe this will give real-time indicators telling smokers while smoking that their blood pressure is increasing, O2 levels are decreasing and pulse is rising. When one actually sees these health-indicating statistics, maybe it will be a good form of discouragement to get people to think about quitting!
Agreed! In 1960 the US population was 180 million.
Unfortunately, the only population where smoking in not decreasing is young women. When I see Sean Penn (and others) on-screen with a cigarette "acting" it really frustrates me to no end.
Dropping insurance coverage for smoking-caused illnesses would also be a good form of discouragement.
Not being from the US I assumed premiums would increase proportionally based on healthy/unhealthy lifestyle choices? Wouldn't that adjust for this ?
Not to hijack this thread however. If something like this were proven to actually make people healthier the government could subsidize it with saved healthcare money (that's coming from a socialist Canadian viewpoint!)
Not being from the US I assumed premiums would increase proportionally based on healthy/unhealthy lifestyle choices? Wouldn't that adjust for this ?
Not to hijack this thread however. If something like this were proven to actually make people healthier the government could subsidize it with saved healthcare money (that's coming from a socialist Canadian viewpoint!)
Actually if you would have taken a look at Google's revenue you would have known that it is not all vaporware and that an increasing amount of revenue comes from hardware sales. Just in 2013 its revenues from hardware doubled to 13% of the total revenue.
It looks like it that Google is looking more and more to hardware sales to boost its revenue, it is well aware that it can't keep this growth up with just advertising revenue, while Apple is looking more and more to revenue via targeted advertising (iAd) in order to not be completely dependable on hardware sales but also provide services. Strange how that works right? When companies reach such high points like Apple and Google have it is important to diversify. Else if you keep doing one thing, if that one thing slows down you will quickly have decreasing stock value.
Looking at Google's earnings report 90.2% of their revenue is search: Actual percent of Hardware profit if any, i couldn't find the breakdown, but since the margin of hardware is lower than software the percentage of search profit is probably at 98% of 3.3 billion made. Google is currently a one trick pony, Google brought Nest to be the in house Hardware design department and you don't do that if you are making a profit on hardware which they aren't, far to many moonshot's.
(from Google's Earning's Report)Other Google Revenues - Other revenues from the Google segment were $1.65 billion, or 10% of total Google segment revenues (16.86 billion), in the fourth quarter of 2013. This represents a 99% increase over fourth quarter 2012 other Google segment revenues of $829 million. (added notation: 16.86 billion).
I wouldn't get hopes up too high on glucose level detecting in the iWatch. This rumor is based on the acquisition by Apple of one of the researchers of Sano Intelligence, a company that is developing a patch that can detect glucose levels. However this technology is property of Sano Intelligence (and C8, but their tech failed in measuring consistently accurate levels leading to the eventual bankruptcy) and doesn't move to Apple because they acquired one (a couple of engineers in the case of C8) of the researchers. If they were planning on using this they probably would have bought a license from Sano, which would be the fastest way of getting it to market, instead of buying one of the researchers. Furthermore this is a new technology and just like Googles glucose lens it still has to undergo years of testing and further refinement before it gets FDA approval (if you build a machine from existing tech it can even take as long as 7 months so...). I rather think they just needed people with a lot of experience in sensors, f.e. that person also developed a patch that measures heart beat, blood pressure, skin temperature, stress detection, ... Stuff like that seems more likely. The glucose patch (just like Googles lens) is estimated to be at least 5 years away from market introduction.
What is possible is that you manually enter glucose levels so you can keep track of it. Or at most like S Health be capable of integrating with third-party glucosemeters via Bluetooth.
Thanks for the info. Glucose reader or not, it seems like integrating sensors with a healthcare app is going to be huge, especially if implemented in a simple way. Siri already queues up info about driving to work and weather; it'd be great if it could summarize your daily health stats as well, provide suggestions based on predetermined health target goals, prompt for medications, etc.
Quote:
Originally Posted by christopher126
Agreed, Patch. Along similar lines, I think it was David Brooks who said recently, (paraphrasing) If there was no poverty, we wouldn't have a crime problem, a murder problem, a health crisis, an education problem and on and on. Obviously, he realizes that you can't just wish away poverty but his point still stands.
The mental health aspect is huge. It sounds trite to say it, but the drugs and alcohol abuse are, in some ways, their self-medicating attempts.
Best.
You always have great quotes! I fully agree with David Brooks, but with one caveat, that I think poverty in and of itself is a bit of a red herring, and that, at least in the US, poverty is more of a cultural phenomenon. I believe most people have the innate ability to find their way out of poverty; we just need to find and rectify the (mostly) psychological and practical barriers that keep them there. I've given away my bias, but I think mental health has a lot to do with it, and I suspect Apple will somehow integrate this into their health effort.
Quote:
Originally Posted by joelsalt
Not being from the US I assumed premiums would increase proportionally based on healthy/unhealthy lifestyle choices? Wouldn't that adjust for this ?
Not to hijack this thread however. If something like this were proven to actually make people healthier the government could subsidize it with saved healthcare money (that's coming from a socialist Canadian viewpoint!)
Good point! In the US there has been a big push to emphasize preventative care. If Apple were able to qualify the iWatch/sensors as FDA approved health aids, there is the potential that insurance companies could subsidize or pay for them. There are many commonly used medications that (in the US at least) cost $300.. per month! Some Apple hardware would be (relatively) inexpensive and potentially save money in the long run.
Comments
Dropping insurance coverage for smoking-caused illnesses would also be a good form of discouragement.
Wow...that is officially the dumbest and most ignorant thing you've ever posted. You think people smoke, with the thought process of, "Well if it makes me sick at least I have insurance for medical care"....????????
Wow...that is officially the dumbest and most ignorant thing you've ever posted. You think people smoke, with the thought process of, "Well if it makes me sick at least I have insurance for medical care"....????????
Wow. I don't like ts's histrionics much, but I'll defend him here. Just like raising cigarette taxes has reduced smoking, raising the cost of smoking in other ways should have the same effect. Pretty basic economics. Of course most smokers don't contemplate their distant future every time they pick up a cigarette, but a drumbeat of stories about smokers having to pay for their own chemo and cancer drugs would have to have *some* effect.
That said, I think there's approximately zero chance that insurance companies will stop covering smoking-related illnesses, many of which may be caused by other things. Another option: charging smokers bigger premium differentials (already done for life & health insurance in many states, but the difference could be bigger) might make the future costs more apparent to smokers in the present.
Wow...that is officially the dumbest and most ignorant thing you've ever posted. You think people smoke, with the thought process of, "Well if it makes me sick at least I have insurance for medical care"....????????
No, but talk about dumb and ignorant things to post. There’s absolutely no explanation for that nonsense. Quoted to remain an embarrassment to you for years to come.
I physically shook my head when I read that.
Uh, no.
If anyone thinks that a "Fitness Focus" is going to do anything for Apple other than drive it into the ground, they've got another thing coming.
"Fitness" and everything related to it is not going to sell devices, or encourage software upgrades. Fitness as a tentpole feature of software or hardware will be about as popular as the "enhancements to Siri" were in iOS 6.
No wonder Nike went bankrupt when they came out with FuelBand...
"Nike Inc.'s Equipment division saw an 18% rise in profits for the 2012 fiscal year after introduction of the Nike+ FuelBand, in comparison to the -1% loss during the 2011 fiscal year.[7] Before the FuelBand's official American release, it was open for pre-order online, and was sold out both times within the same day.[8][9] A consumer on Twitter timed one of the pre-order periods to be exactly 4 minutes before all FuelBands were sold out and Nikestore.com was overloaded due to customer traffic.[10] Nike+ FuelBands were being sold on eBay during the first couple of months after pre-order for approximately double the retail price.[11]"
Definitely don't need an app to tell us that you're off your meds.
Funny how countries like France and Japan have a higher proportion of smokers, yet have half the health care costs and least the same -- if not better health outcomes -- than the US does.
So basically it's not something we're going to see in 2014. Heck that contact lens Google is working on is like 5 years away from coming to market.
Anything hardware wise is mostly profitless vaporware for Google, except for their in house servers.
Funny how countries like France and Japan have a higher proportion of smokers, yet have half the health care costs and least the same -- if not better health outcomes -- than the US does.
Clearly Americans should keep smoking, and fix whatever the other problem is. Smoking must not be a problem at all.
For years Apple TV has just been a hobby, and now in the last few weeks it has become a full-fledged product on the Apple Store online. I wonder if this is to make room for a new hobby? Health is a whole new area for Apple and it's not clear that exercise based product will necessarily be successful, so I wonder if Healthbook will be announced as the new hobby?
It looks like it that Google is looking more and more to hardware sales to boost its revenue, it is well aware that it can't keep this growth up with just advertising revenue, while Apple is looking more and more to revenue via targeted advertising (iAd) in order to not be completely dependable on hardware sales but also provide services. Strange how that works right? When companies reach such high points like Apple and Google have it is important to diversify. Else if you keep doing one thing, if that one thing slows down you will quickly have decreasing stock value.
[facepalm] speechless [/facepalm]
That's an amazing statistic, but the amount that the US adult population has increased since then, 20% is still probably close to the same number of people who smoked back then. Proportionately less but still the same amount.
Maybe this will give real-time indicators telling smokers while smoking that their blood pressure is increasing, O2 levels are decreasing and pulse is rising. When one actually sees these health-indicating statistics, maybe it will be a good form of discouragement to get people to think about quitting!
Agreed! In 1960 the US population was 180 million.
Unfortunately, the only population where smoking in not decreasing is young women. When I see Sean Penn (and others) on-screen with a cigarette "acting" it really frustrates me to no end.
Best.
Which begs the question - why the iWatch?
Sorry, Pax. I don't follow?
Not to hijack this thread however. If something like this were proven to actually make people healthier the government could subsidize it with saved healthcare money (that's coming from a socialist Canadian viewpoint!)
Under the new Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) the rules have changed. Healthy as can be or just this sidfe of death no longer will matter. It's more age-based now.
https://www.ehealthinsurance.com/affordable-care-act/faqs/will-i-pay-less-for-health-insurance-if-im-in-good-health-or-more-if-i-have-a-pre-existing-condition
Smoking is the one exception. No one can be denied coverage because they smoke. In most cases they won't even pay more for insurance than those that don't. But certain insurance companies in certain States may charge up to a 50% surcharge if you're a tobacco user.
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-12-03/how-much-more-will-smokers-pay-for-obamacare
FWIW I went cold-turkey one night over 5 years ago and have never lit up a tobacco product
[facepalm] speechless [/facepalm]
Sorry, did that need a /s tag? Hehe.
Actually if you would have taken a look at Google's revenue you would have known that it is not all vaporware and that an increasing amount of revenue comes from hardware sales. Just in 2013 its revenues from hardware doubled to 13% of the total revenue.
It looks like it that Google is looking more and more to hardware sales to boost its revenue, it is well aware that it can't keep this growth up with just advertising revenue, while Apple is looking more and more to revenue via targeted advertising (iAd) in order to not be completely dependable on hardware sales but also provide services. Strange how that works right? When companies reach such high points like Apple and Google have it is important to diversify. Else if you keep doing one thing, if that one thing slows down you will quickly have decreasing stock value.
Looking at Google's earnings report 90.2% of their revenue is search: Actual percent of Hardware profit if any, i couldn't find the breakdown, but since the margin of hardware is lower than software the percentage of search profit is probably at 98% of 3.3 billion made. Google is currently a one trick pony, Google brought Nest to be the in house Hardware design department and you don't do that if you are making a profit on hardware which they aren't, far to many moonshot's.
(from Google's Earning's Report) Other Google Revenues - Other revenues from the Google segment were $1.65 billion, or 10% of total Google segment revenues (16.86 billion), in the fourth quarter of 2013. This represents a 99% increase over fourth quarter 2012 other Google segment revenues of $829 million. (added notation: 16.86 billion).
I wouldn't get hopes up too high on glucose level detecting in the iWatch. This rumor is based on the acquisition by Apple of one of the researchers of Sano Intelligence, a company that is developing a patch that can detect glucose levels. However this technology is property of Sano Intelligence (and C8, but their tech failed in measuring consistently accurate levels leading to the eventual bankruptcy) and doesn't move to Apple because they acquired one (a couple of engineers in the case of C8) of the researchers. If they were planning on using this they probably would have bought a license from Sano, which would be the fastest way of getting it to market, instead of buying one of the researchers. Furthermore this is a new technology and just like Googles glucose lens it still has to undergo years of testing and further refinement before it gets FDA approval (if you build a machine from existing tech it can even take as long as 7 months so...). I rather think they just needed people with a lot of experience in sensors, f.e. that person also developed a patch that measures heart beat, blood pressure, skin temperature, stress detection, ... Stuff like that seems more likely. The glucose patch (just like Googles lens) is estimated to be at least 5 years away from market introduction.
What is possible is that you manually enter glucose levels so you can keep track of it. Or at most like S Health be capable of integrating with third-party glucosemeters via Bluetooth.
Thanks for the info. Glucose reader or not, it seems like integrating sensors with a healthcare app is going to be huge, especially if implemented in a simple way. Siri already queues up info about driving to work and weather; it'd be great if it could summarize your daily health stats as well, provide suggestions based on predetermined health target goals, prompt for medications, etc.
Agreed, Patch. Along similar lines, I think it was David Brooks who said recently, (paraphrasing) If there was no poverty, we wouldn't have a crime problem, a murder problem, a health crisis, an education problem and on and on. Obviously, he realizes that you can't just wish away poverty but his point still stands.
The mental health aspect is huge. It sounds trite to say it, but the drugs and alcohol abuse are, in some ways, their self-medicating attempts.
Best.
You always have great quotes! I fully agree with David Brooks, but with one caveat, that I think poverty in and of itself is a bit of a red herring, and that, at least in the US, poverty is more of a cultural phenomenon. I believe most people have the innate ability to find their way out of poverty; we just need to find and rectify the (mostly) psychological and practical barriers that keep them there. I've given away my bias, but I think mental health has a lot to do with it, and I suspect Apple will somehow integrate this into their health effort.
Not being from the US I assumed premiums would increase proportionally based on healthy/unhealthy lifestyle choices? Wouldn't that adjust for this ?
Not to hijack this thread however. If something like this were proven to actually make people healthier the government could subsidize it with saved healthcare money (that's coming from a socialist Canadian viewpoint!)
Good point! In the US there has been a big push to emphasize preventative care. If Apple were able to qualify the iWatch/sensors as FDA approved health aids, there is the potential that insurance companies could subsidize or pay for them. There are many commonly used medications that (in the US at least) cost $300.. per month! Some Apple hardware would be (relatively) inexpensive and potentially save money in the long run.
I might've guessed it. You're 13.