Can Google Health be a game-changer for online healthcare?

[Moonbear]

Look Evo, your arguments are completely invalid so long as you don't address the fact that nurses and doctors have access to your files and can screw you over just as easily, but never do. You're telling me a nurse is somehow above such things? No, I think it's simply a case of "I don't care enough to do it."

Quite frankly, there's less financial incentive for a nurse to break the law (and lose all possibility of employment in the healthcare field ever again) by giving information to insurance companies. If insurance companies drop claims and refuse payment because of information received from the doctor's office, the doctor's office isn't going to get paid. There's no incentive for a Google employee or internet hacker who has no vested interest in being paid by an insurance company not to sell the information that would get your coverage dropped.

History of depression that you've mentioned above is actually a good reason for an insurance company to deny you new coverage should you ever have a gap in coverage. Depression is expensive to treat for insurance companies. Or, if they see that testicular torsion in your records and you find yourself needing to get fertility treatment with a future wife, they could deny the claim based on that history...even if it's not directly related, they could say it is possible. Or, a future employer might see a long history of health claims and wonder if you're going to be out sick a lot and maybe decide not to hire you because of that (and as was mentioned above, if you have no control of where that information is or who is seeing it, you may never know what their reason is for not hiring you). There is just too much incentive for someone to get their hands on that sort of database with information on that number of people (hundreds of thousands is worth the effort and risk, a few hundred in a small doctor's office isn't).

 

[humanino]

insurance company
[...]
future employer

If an insurance or future employer could get their hands on my email account, I'm not sure they would consider myself the same way

 

[Poop-Loops]

I do bank transactions online and I do government related stuff such as applying for financial aid online. If they can do it securely, then I don't see why Google would just drop the ball.