Hospital records of all NHS patients sold to insurers The medical records of every NHS hospital patient in the country have been sold for insurance purposes, The Telegraph can reveal.
The disclosure comes days after controversial plans to extract patient data from GP files were put on hold, amid concerns over the scheme.
Those in charge of the programme have repeatedly insisted that it will be illegal for information extracted from GP files to be sold to insurers, who might seek to target customers or put up their prices.
However, a report by a major UK insurance society discloses that it was able to obtain 13 years of hospital data – covering 47 million patients – in order to help companies “refine” their premiums.
As a result they recommended an increase in the costs of policies for thousands of customers last year. The report by the Staple Inn Actuarial Society – a major organisation for UK insurers – details how it was able to use NHS data covering all hospital in-patient stays between 1997 and 2010 to track the medical histories of patients, identified by date of birth and postcode."
It boasts that “uniquely” they were able to combine these details with information from credit ratings agencies, such as Experian, which record the lifestyle habits of milllions of consumers.
The calculations were used to advise companies how to refine their premiums, resulting in increased premiums for most customers below the age of 50, according to the report dated last March. .........."
While not really related to the story....I will point this out. German doctors over the past decade....have now become acquainted with giving more and more patients....paceboes. What they’ve come to realize....while patients got smarter and demanded the newest and most advertised drugs....they really didn’t need them. So, rather than waste state funding on unnecessary drugs....they prescribed cheap paceboes (herbal remedies).
Now, I’m not going to say we’ve got a problem here with costly modern medicines. But I suspect that fifty percent of the drug sales going on today...are just wasted money.
Well, why am I not surprised.
What is killing so many of our entitlement programs is the fact that there are so many dependent years between retirement and death. Back when people lived to be 62, Social Security would kick in at 60, and they would get a couple of years in the sun. Now people are living to be 82, and Social Security is going broke having to pay out for 20+ years.
We have to reduce the number of years between retirement and death. The logical way to do this would be to raise the retirement age to something like 75 years old. But that would be politically unacceptable. So, instead, our politicians have decided to work on the death side of the equation. Thus Obamacare.
Class-warrior Obama has decided there are classes of "useless Americans" who are simply not fit to live in his utopian "progressive society" (the society w/ a "tolerant and compassionate" permanent Democratic majority).
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A FRIENDLY REMINDER TO DEMOCRATS: You voted for all of this: (1) throwing Americans off affordable health plans, (2) burdening Americans w/ ruinous deductibles, (3) nationalizing 1/16 of the US economy, (4) abandoning the elderly and the chronically ill, (5) empowering IPAB's (Death Panels),(6) decimating intergenerational transfers of wealth, and, (7) drug rationing.
REMEMBER THIS DEMOCRATS? As far back as 2008, at the Democrat presidential debate in Nashville, Democrat candidate Obama smilingly campaigned on the glories of his signature healthcare plan---ultimately enacted, by an historic straight Democrat party-line vote, into the "Affordable Care Act"
QUOTING 2008 OBAMA: "No. 1, let me just repeat, if you’ve got a health care plan that you like, you can keep it. All I’m going to do is help you to lower the premiums on it. You’ll still have choice of doctor.”
Repeated over and over ---- with the promise that every American family would be saving $2500.00 on healthcare costs.
Significantly, Obamba NEVER corrected lock-stepping Democrats, all reading from the same Democrat talking points, all of them repeating the same Democrat promises---over and over again.
LOCK-STEPPING PARTY LOYALTY NOT SEEN SINCE 1930- 40's ERA EUROPE Obama And The Dems marched in lockstep. The persistent Dumbocrat drumbeat ---- in obeisance to Obama ---- kept ringing reassuringly in our ears: "If you like your plan, you can keep your plan."
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Ominous cogs in the Obamacare meat grinder----the inexorable forcing of Grandma/pa onto Medicaid--(like cattle herded single-file onto the narrow ramp---knowing the bolt is coming---but not able to do a thing about it). Medicaid conveniently groups together the sick and elderly---as Obama's IPAB board of radicals sit in judgment. Boobamba's Orwellian-speak---the progressive way of saying "Obamacare keeps costs down."
The infamous "Death Panels---are alive and well----but they're not called death panels......for obvious reasons. The treacherous Obama euphemistically calls his death panel "I-PAB----Individual Payment Advisory Board." I-PAB decides what to pay and who to pay---thus rationing medical care to sick oldsters. Obamacare "allows" states to expand their Medicaid recipients pool. Under Obamacare, Washington now covers about 1/2 the cost of Medicaid enrollees.
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What is I-PAB?
When you find out about IPAB, you will not believe it - but it’s r-e-a-l.... a new type of government agency. IPAB (Independent Payment Advisory Board) is the first agency of the “fifth branch” of govt.
1) It will make all important health care decisions by authorizing payment or not.
2) It is not funded by Congress and cannot have its budget reviewed or changed.
3) Its membership cannot be changed by future Presidents,
4) It cannot be repealed by Congress, except for a six month window in 2017.
5) Its decisions are not subject to judicial review.
6) It is not authorized by the Constitution, and is therefore immune to Constitutional processes.
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Why is Obamacre herding seniors WITH ASSETS onto Medicaid---a program structured for the poor? Can you say redistribution of wealth? Herding the elderly with assets into Medicaid has ominous consequences that are intriguing to the left. B/c assets, perhaps a home owned free and clear, securities, annuities, investment property, can be seized to pay for govt treatment.
Thus intergenerational transfers of wealth (a longtime progressive bugaboo)----are decimated (grandma/pa's holdings go to the govt---not to you).
“I would suggest, sir, that, again, this is an incredibly agonizing situation where someone lives and someone dies” Kathleen Sebelius
BFL
ping
SURPRISE! SURPRISE! SURPRISE!
We are finding all kind of surprises in the "We have to pass it to find out what is in the Queen Nancy Bill"
Bookmark.
“President Obama’s”
…this is the most disturbing part of the article for me. Referring to him as “president”.
This is a classic reason why having third parties pay for routine medical expenses like drugs is a really, really, really bad idea.
I can accept that there are a lot of unnecessary meds being prescribed. After all, the doc says that the med may help...and, if your insurance covers it, what do you care how much it costs...and if the cost is justified by the benefit?
If you actually had to pay for the med, rather than just a co-pay, you would actually do the cost-benefit analysis.
When an insurer decides, arbitrarily, that a medication is no longer to be listed on their formulary, they remove the possibility of that choice for you...even if, in your particular circumstance, the med in question may be effective and warrant the price.
When the government makes that kind of decision, there is no appeal...and, in fact, it may be impossible for you to even pay for the med out of your own pocket, particularly if the pharma companies decide that it’s not worthwhile to produce the med or if the pharmacy decides that it’s not worthwhile to purchase a wholesale quantity of that med.
I guess the idea of just having grandma taking a pill no longer applies...unless grandma’s pill is government-approved.
If you like your meds, you can keep your meds....
If you like your prescription drugs, you can keep your prescription drugs. Period. Until King Hussein and his merry band of totalitarians change their minds. Cue the death panels. TOTALITARIANCARE: plunder & death.
Above all, if you wish to be strong, begin by rooting out every particle of socialism that may have crept into your legislation. - Bastiat
There is no "promise", and the sooner everyone accepts this, the better.
If an elderly person has taken more in Medicare benefits than he has paid in (assuming a reasonable rate of interest on those payments), he is receiving welfare. Pure and simple.
‘If you like your “Medicare meds” you can keep your “Medicare meds”...’ -— Barry Hussein
Does this mean drugs for everyone else will get cheaper?
This is nothing but the evil of planned murder.
Based on COLOR and POLITICAL connections.
So socialized medicine isn’t socialized enough? And that’s a bad thing?
It’s islamism.
Germany’s biggest health insurer to cut 3,500 jobs
Mon Feb 24, 2014 8:48am GMT
BERLIN, Feb 24 (Reuters) - Barmer GEK, Germany’s largest statutory health insurance provider, is slashing 3,500 jobs, or 20 percent of total staff, in response to deteriorating market conditions and changes in client behaviour.
Chief Executive Christoph Straub said in a statement on Monday that Barmer planned to cut back on the number of customer-facing offices and build up its phone and online services.