Ramble by Emmjay
I stole this line from the Australian poet Mark O’Connor. He was referring to mirages in the arid outback landscape in his 2009 collection “Pilbara” (John Leonard Press).
But I think it now has a far wider application.
The other day LinkedIn reported that Apple had set up its own employee health clinics.
Now, we all know how insanely expensive health care is in the United states and I for one puzzle over why the main beneficiaries of this prohibitively expensive healthcare should vote for Trump and be OK about the attempted assassination of Obamacare.
The curious thing was the unbridled praise for Apple (the world’s first US$Trillian company). I guess, on the surface it sounds like corporate munificence, but I wonder how many of those who praised dear old Apple had stopped to consider the wisdom of handing over one’s health information to corporatized hackerdom.
We see here in Australia the growing opposition to what was originally touted as a great idea – a centralised MYHealth Record – that could be accessed by just about anyone with a pulse – as well as a rampaging pack of health industry blood sucking corporations. Any reason why would we not be concerned – with all the famous governmental IT fuck ups from something as simple as running a census, to plundering Centrelink recipients’ payments. Did I mention the crash of the ATO’s DIY online fuck up ? This is a classic. The one department with unlimited funds manages to stuff up people’s access to actually provide those funds by paying their taxes on time. Sorry Commissioner, I tried to pay my tax but your dog ate my homework.
Needless to labour the point. I give you WikiLeaks. If the Pentagon can’t maintain security, best of luck punting on the Australian Department of Health. There’s no security. LinkedIn was hacked. So was Facebook – oh no. They GAVE access to those pommie bastards caught red handed who have wisely filed for bankruptcy and disappeared into the sand.
It’s no wonder that doctors are coming out of the woodwork and saying they they personally won’t be participating in MYHealth by supplying their own health details into some unsupervised cesspit open to every corporation who would want to flog us pharmaceutical and other megabuck treatments – rather than help staunch this river of cash.
So, imagine you work for Apple and one or two of life’s vicissitudes befalls you. Imagine your mental health isn’t in great shape after the death of a loved one, or a diagnosis of a terminal illness. Would you be comfortable that the patient-doctor bond of privacy would be respected ? Let’s remember what Apple actually does – they are specialists at hacking. And of course, your doctor also works for Apple and he or she doesn’t want to risk a fat pay check by holding back information that your productivity just now might be a bit crap.
So – best of luck Apple employees.
Sorry, I’ve got to rush off and close my Facebook and Twitter accounts.
sandshoeblog said:
I either applied to attend or was an invitee to who knows how many ‘National Health Records’ discussions, committees, workshops and drinkies.
Even since I have lived in the South East I attended a meeting in Adelaide of the HCSA, Health Consumers of South Australia that was addressed by a gentleman who presented analyses of who answers to whom making decisions about culpability drafting this policy. The gentleman, Peter, cited an amount of money said to be the total spent on it to that date.
I reflected on experience as a Board member on ‘things’ from the viewpoint of an historical backwards glance at the installation of new whizz bang computer systems that always seemed to terminate in litigation or its threat and that Centrelink needed billions spent on its system.
I thought chalk this Health Records thing up to experience and not send more money after it. I expected a controversy would soon then be breaking out all over about how much it cost to get up that far (billions and billions and billions). I believed I would never see the day arrive when someone would claim it was worked through sufficiently to launch.
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Yvonne said:
Brave New World, indeed. Shudder.
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vivienne29 said:
Where Turnbull gets some of his ‘great ideas’ from.
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algernon1 said:
There were fake Apple stores in China where the employees though they actually worked for Apple.
BTW I don’t have a Twitter or Facebook account
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Therese Trouserzoff said:
I suspect that there are also real Apple stores masquerading as fake ones too. China, I gather is tricky like that. Inscrutable.
Spikes Milligan “I scrutinised him with an intense scrut”
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