Question

Apply the knowledge that you have gained about healthcare insurance, and research current articles about the future of health insurance in the United States. Summarize your findings in a two-page paper

Answer 1

Summary - Future of health insurance in the United States

Surely the part which accounts for the maximum amount of any citizen living in US is their health insurance, be it insured by private or public sector. This leaves any average earning person fuming. But going forward, the health insurance which seems to be a burden for now can become a healthy part of a citizens income. How? The answer is Artificial intelligence and data analytics. Let's have a look into it from certain aspects.

Artificial intelligence and analytics with latest technologies will certainly change the status quo and health insurance companies in US and they will surely try to implement those into practice. The spread of electronic medical records as per the standards will make it possible for the companies to operate more in a preventive and personal way rather than the reactive way. This is important because health insurance is a very risky business. From the insurer's side, they cannot get required relevant information to make fully informed investments in a person's future health. Companies can get certain basic information like age of a person, lifestyle, sex etc. but if they are not able to get details about health parameters, the value these parameter's provide remains questionable.

From an insuring companies side, they would not want to pay for a healthcare person who chooses to knowingly live an unhealthy life. Digital health can help in solving such problems. First of all, it will motivate everyone to live a healthy life. The real problem today is that the insurance market is totally one sided. Companies do not value a person or do not give any incentives to a person who lives a healthy life but penalizes those who live an unhealthy life. Unhealthy can also be due to some genetically inherited problems. Most people these days do not pay attention to their health as they should. They simply pay up for the insurance and when the symptoms creep up, they'll hope that their doctors will fix their problem.

But imagine what if you get a premium incentive for living a healthy life style? Few American insurance companies such as Oscar health are testing some of their new features like these. Their patients get Amazon card or other coupons for achieving the desired goals that they have been trying to achieve. The tracking for the same is done by health bands such as fit bit. This is a small start but surely a step in the right direction. Even today the patients can measure their sleep quality, stress level, pressure and many other such health related parameters at home. But big data can go so much further than that. For example, if we can get sample DNA's of around 200 people and check for cancer symptoms in them and extrapolate it to get an accurate results in terms of various parameters contributing to identifying whether a person is likely to get a cancer in near future based on forecasts. This would surely change the face of insurance companies.

Though this seems to be very positive, this can cause few disadvantages as well, mostly to the insurer. What if the insurance is provided only to the customers who provide the companies with these personal data? What is the customer do not want to share these data? What if the companies leverage those data and increase the premium cover for those who score less in the above parameters? That's why regulators must be at the fore front of these innovations.

Going forward, future of the healthcare companies looks fine with the advent of data analytics but if not careful that can make the companies as well as the citizens pay.