My science fiction novel Redcrosse came out in 2011: the question behind Redcrosse was, “what would happen if your credit card company and your health insurance company became the same company?”
Got high cholesterol? Then don’t order that pepperoni pizza and pay with your credit card because your health insurance premium will go up.
In 2011, this was science fiction. Today it’s reality.
This morning NPR posted, “Health Insurers Are Vacuuming Up Details About You — And It Could Raise Your Rates,” which explains in detail how insurance companies use data — including things that you post on social media — to make determinations about how much your health care will cost. The article is terrifying, and I urge you to read it immediately and in its entirety.
I always say that people decide with their hearts and then justify the decision with their heads. Redcrosse is a novel-length, targeted-at-the-heart version of the NPR story. If you aren’t scared reading that story, then there’s a generous free downloadable sample of Redcrosse available at Amazon.
As a futurist, sometimes the worst thing in the world is to realize that you were right. That just happened.
Infinite thanks to my wife, Prof. Kathi Inman Berens, for sharing the NPR article.
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