Health Insurance, Biometrics and Cash

If someone asked me, I would probably say that I believe we should have healthcare for all Americans. I do not hate the "Obamacare" law as a whole. I would like to see some changes; but, the basic idea of making sure everyone has healthcare is a good thing. I mention this because I am going to link to a site that appears much more conservative than my views. I am not promoting the site nor condemning it, I only cared about this one article.

Americans For Tax Reform - Obamacare: Taxpayers Must Report Personal Health ID Info to IRS.

The article points out that as of next year, all tax filers will also need to provide identifying health information to prove that they have health insurance as required by law or pay a fee. It does beg the question who will choose to pay a fee so that they don't have to get health insurance. If you are rich, you can just pay the fee and hire doctors as you need them. You might also remember that all of your health records must be stored electronically.

Yahoo - Lose weight with new FitBit Flex
. I know I have written about this before; but, I want to follow a line of reasoning. While I agree with universal healthcare, the manner in which it is being implemented is too totalitarian for my liking. Your lifestyle will be recorded and reported and if you are doing things that mamma don't like, momma will charge you more and believe me, if you are employed by a company they are going to require you to take care of yourself or you will be fired for costing too much in "avoidable" risks.

Here is a question, if I have a family healthcare plan and my kid is fat, will I have to pay more? Maybe I will save money if I get my kid to begin a weight loss plan and I will want to know that he is following it to save money so I might have him wear a FitBit Flex and have it report to me if he is not eating right or exercising. I would certainly want it to tell me if he was drinking or smoking, wouldn't you? We have all heard about childhood diabetes and weight being on the rise, we have to save the children, THE CHILDREN. Watch, it is coming and if you don't take care of your child's weight and health then you might just find yourself charged with child abuse.

Now, I am going to talk about money. First article is from Wired - Why $45M in Stolen Cash Still Won’t Get Rid of Hackable ATM Cards. Here is how this went down. A few scammers in multiple nations managed to steal $45 million by faking Debit cards. The article is all over the news about how these guys stole the money. The article talks about how there are safer cards with little chips in them; but, that Americans have not rushed to implement them.

Finally, Wired - Canada Will Beat U.S. to Cashless Economy
. I love the spin in the article, the question is not whether or not we are going to be cashless, the question is if the Canadians will get there first. LOL. Apparently, we are racing the Canadians to see who goes cashless first, I don't know about you but I am not trying to go cashless.

We need to ask ourselves some questions. Once we go cashless all transactions can be tracked. Can you just imagine how much that will tell others about you? I shop at Vons, they regularly have charitable contributions for a month straight (Breast Cancer, Muscular Dystrophy...). When they do these I contribute the same amount everytime I go to the store (which is pretty much daily). If I went into the store and didn't contribute, the checker would probably ask me if I was short on cash. If someone used my Vons card and didn't contribute, the system would see an anomaly. Computers can be programmed to see the same thing and your Debit and Credit cards are tracked in just that manner.

Sorry, I lost my train of thought; but, I posted what I wanted to get out. Have a great week.