Yuumoushin.com (勇猛心)

I just wanted to share this blog post: Skype and the hedge fund problem. It’s not what you think – he’s not stating that hedge funds move as a result of what happens to Skype or vice versa; however, he does make an interesting point on how algorithms fail to anticipate out of the ordinary behavior. The key being that hedge funds, in their own way, are peer-to-peer networks. His concluding remarks sum it up nicely:

As our economy becomes ever more tightly and intricately networked, its continued operation will hinge on the assumptions that mathematicians and software engineers embed in the code that underpins it. Usually, the assumptions will hold. But usually isn’t always. Weird things happen, even in the largest of crowds.

However, on another post, there was a rebuttal: that Skype’s most recent outage can’t really be compared to hedge funds because the outage wasn’t due to abnormal crowd behavior, but rather a random occurrence of system failures. I work in this industry and I don’t see the relation, but I thought it was interesting, none-the-less.

It was only a matter of time, and I bet many people get upset over an insurance company’s recent announcement that unhealthy individuals will have to pay higher insurance premiums.

At Clarian, employees who have blood pressure that’s above 140 over 90, blood glucose levels over 120, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol over 130, or a BMI over 29.9 could be subject to the paycheck deductions. Of the company’s 13,000 employees, about 8,000 are enrolled in the company’s health plan. The company estimates that as many as 34% of its employees will meet the definition of being obese, while it expects lower levels for other health measures. About 26% are tobacco users. The fines are waived for employees who can provide a doctor’s note stating it’s not advisable for them to try to meet the benchmark — employees will be able to submit new notes from their doctors quarterly — and that they are complying with the proper diet, exercise, and treatment plan.

I think this makes sense. However, were at a point in the U.S., it seems, where people don’t step up and take responsibility for their actions. There have been law suits against fast food restaurants because of increased obesity (god forbid it would be the consumers’ fault…no, they were forced to eat 2 big macs, large fries and a coke). And what about people who commit heinous crimes because they’re “over medicated,” etc.? In some cases, yes, there are perfectly valid reasons, but it seems like everyone has some sort of an excuse.

Many health related problems are the fault of the individual, and I don’t buy that whole “it’s more expensive to eat healthy” argument, either. Or “I just don’t have the time.” That’s fallacy and pure laziness on the part of the individual. Sure, if you buy branded health products, you might pay more in the same way you’d pay more for shoes with a brand name, for example. But eating healthy doesn’t require specific brands. And not having enough time is merely an issue of priority. Eat less overall, compensate bad sugars for good sugars like vegetables and fruits, eat out less, go for walks, get a bike, etc.

I think insurance companies have their own set of issues, don’t get me wrong, but I also think that some of their concerns are justified. And it’s not as if they’re branding everyone – if you have a perfectly valid reason per your doctor, then you get an exception. The article also mentions smoking, and many people would agree with that assessment (yet they don’t see the other problems in the same light). I think we’re at a point now where people are informed well enough with regard to smoking. You just can’t make an excuse like “I didn’t know it was bad for me.”

The point is, a lot of today’s healthy problems (like the ones mentioned above) are a result of bad habits. Why should insurance companies bear those burdens?