You know what else would help? Annual (or more) blood tests during routine wellness checks with your doctor.

Do you know why most people don't get those?

Insurance won't cover them. Many insurance providers won't cover them.

Maybe start there? Although I'm guessing he has no buddies who would make money from routine blood tests.

Not to mention your general health status to insurance companies. Bad health score? Worse insurance deal

Mine runs on me. It especially likes me wanking.

The best part is the random bill.

• Go to the doctor. Get blood drawn.
• Doctor send the blood to a lab for the test. Doesn't tell me who. I don't care who. It's their subcontractor, let them worry about it.
  *Go back to the doctor or get a call for results. Pay the doctor the standard co-pay.
  *Months later a random company sends me a bill. This is a company that I have never interacted with or entered into any contract with, for work that somebody else (presumably my doctor, but who the fuck knows for sure) asked them to do for them, sending the results to that other person and NOT to me.

The system is broken. If any other company subcontracted a part of their work to a third party, you as the client would reasonably expect that work to be paid through the original contract, not get a bill directly from the subcontractor. I didn't hire them, the doctor hired them. As far as I'm concerned, that's the doctor's subcontractor and their debt, not mine. I paid the doctor already.

Or another variant.

• Go to the emergency room.
• Get separate bills FOR THE SAME SERVICE from the hospital, the doctor, and somehow the hospital again but this time it's the emergency room (which is somehow separate with a different billing company).

The system is not just broken. It is designed to fleece us and train us to always accept whatever debt the institutions decide to levy on us without question.

That would be a violation of the hiipa act. Your samples get sent anonymous to the Lab with only a case number. They only know the adress of the doctor.

If your doctor didn't anonymise your sample and the lab used it to send you a bill, they're in deep waters.

That would be a violation of the hiipa act. Your samples get sent anonymous to the Lab with only a case number. They only know the adress of the doctor.

If your doctor didn't anonymise your sample and the lab used it to send you a bill, they're in deep waters.

My watch runs for years from a coin cell. There's no way that I'm replacing it with an internet connected spy device that constantly needs to be charged.

You know what else would help? Annual (or more) blood tests during routine wellness checks with your doctor.

Do you know why most people don't get those?

Insurance won't cover them. Many insurance providers won't cover them.

Maybe start there? Although I'm guessing he has no buddies who would make money from routine blood tests.

I chose to stop wearing a watch more than 20 years ago. I thought about getting one for the health benefits five years ago, but concluded that I don't want to have a watch nor cover an awesome tattoo. As a friend once wrote, "wearing a watch is like being handcuffed to time."

As long as the wearable contains open source software and preferably open source hardware, then sure, I'd be willing to do so. Because then I could know that I could control where the data went.

As a friend once wrote, “wearing a watch is like being handcuffed to time.”

This is pretty out-of-touch. I mean, a lot of us kinda need to know the time at some point. It takes a special kind of privilege to be able to unshackle yourself from any semblance of a schedule, a privilege that not many of us have.

You know what else would help? Annual (or more) blood tests during routine wellness checks with your doctor.

Do you know why most people don’t get those?

Insurance won’t cover them.

My insurance covers this.

Sure Bobby. I went and got myself an open-source "smart" watch that pairs with another FOSS app that doesn't send anything outside of the device.

What? Not like that? Oh, too bad.

The best part is the random bill.

• Go to the doctor. Get blood drawn.
• Doctor send the blood to a lab for the test. Doesn't tell me who. I don't care who. It's their subcontractor, let them worry about it.
  *Go back to the doctor or get a call for results. Pay the doctor the standard co-pay.
  *Months later a random company sends me a bill. This is a company that I have never interacted with or entered into any contract with, for work that somebody else (presumably my doctor, but who the fuck knows for sure) asked them to do for them, sending the results to that other person and NOT to me.

The system is broken. If any other company subcontracted a part of their work to a third party, you as the client would reasonably expect that work to be paid through the original contract, not get a bill directly from the subcontractor. I didn't hire them, the doctor hired them. As far as I'm concerned, that's the doctor's subcontractor and their debt, not mine. I paid the doctor already.

Or another variant.

• Go to the emergency room.
• Get separate bills FOR THE SAME SERVICE from the hospital, the doctor, and somehow the hospital again but this time it's the emergency room (which is somehow separate with a different billing company).

The system is not just broken. It is designed to fleece us and train us to always accept whatever debt the institutions decide to levy on us without question.

If it ever comes to this, I'm going to "forget" to charge mine. Every day since it comes out of the box. I might wear it so that I don't get stopped in public but this is going to be a brick.

I chose to stop wearing a watch more than 20 years ago. I thought about getting one for the health benefits five years ago, but concluded that I don't want to have a watch nor cover an awesome tattoo. As a friend once wrote, "wearing a watch is like being handcuffed to time."