Purely hypothetically: access to affordable medical insurance becomes contingent upon such a scan. You have a developing condition which will render you uninsurable.
I'm not suggesting Google would or even legally could consider creating a bidding system for insurance companies to use clean scans as a leadgen system, but in the unlikely event that they did feel so inclined, it wouldn't exactly be a wild departure from their business model
The best thing about the Affordable Care Act is that it prohibits discrimination based on preexisting conditions. If a sick person applies for health insurance, the insurance company has to issue it, and the rate can only be set based on your age, smoking status, and location.
So the entire risk pool/population has to bite the cost of the "previously uninsured"? Whether they want to or not? Sorry, nevermind that second question, it was rhetorical. Of course it doesn't matter if they want to or not, it's effectively a government mandated "tax". Taxes are almost never voluntary.
Yes, it makes sense if you think about that "tax" as the payment for the lottery ticket of a functioning body and brain.
Every person here won that lottery ticket, when we could have just as easily suffered from any number of horrible diseases and disorders. Not wanting to pay higher premiums b/c the "lotto losers" are included is like not wanting to pay for a lotto ticket after the fact because you know the rare outcome won't hit you.
So because the current best option is grouping people based on imprecise risk factors like age, demographics, and hereditary problems, we should forever turn a blind eye to individual warning signs even if they could save our lives?
This is a depressingly pessimistic way of ignoring the real underlying problem: health care is too fucking expensive.
2018: Google Health Scanner begins operation in selected pilot cities. Lines wrap around the block as people try to make it in while it's still free (even though the crowd is exclusively composed of people who could certainly afford it, because it's in a whitewashed, gentrified suburban neighborhood).
2019: Apple (January) and later Microsoft (October) respond with their own health scanners. Integrating with their respective data silos on personal health data, only people with iPhones or Windows Phones can be screened at an Apple Store Clinic or Windows You location.
2025: A federal case reveals that Google's initial scanner, in an attempt to reduce false positives, left millions with false confidence in their health. Google settles and introduces a subscription plan.
2027: Leaked emails, photographs, and a misconfigured Hangout that was broadcast live on YouTube show decisively that Google, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, and Oracle are colluding to keep wages low for the medical staff they employ. Oracle doesn't even have any medical staff, it just wanted in on the collusion. The federal government reacts by saying "These people have our medical results now and we're not going near this with a ten-foot pole."
2030: Google announces Nexus Implant, a biometric device that relays data in real-time to Google. This is lauded by the CDC as a major help in combating epidemics. Apple launches iMe later that year. Microsoft released a biometric implant in 2004, but it was derided as "too clunky." Surface You comes out in 2032.
2031: For the 2031 flu season, biometrics users are advised to upgrade to a version with vaccination pods. Capable of being intelligently released if it detects you are exposed to a specific flu strain, this enables the immunocompromised to be "just-in-time vaccinated". Thanks to the tracking data reported back from the implants, flu is at an all-time low.
2033: Massive vulnerabilities rock the now ludicrously decrepit but still used X.509 CA infrastructure. Nobody discusses leaving X.509.
2034: First jailbreak exploits for iMe released, allowing users to circumvent the trusted computing chip on the iMe and load custom firmware. This is initially used by biohackers looking to access raw sensor data.
Spring 2035: Unrest in Bahrain turns coldly bloody as the regime infects anyone with an iMe, Nexus Implant, or Surface Inside with acute vaccination sickness, caused by firing all vaccination pods simultaneously (all implants are now pre-loaded with vaccinations for common infections). A postmortem of the attack determines that the Bahrainian national CA deployed an exploit similar to the jailbreak to issue rogue commands to the vaccination units.
Fall 2035: Protestors in China, Russia and the Ukraine keel over, eyes bleeding, as a custom-made virus is released from backdoored implants. Google defends placing the kill-switches as a cost of doing business in accordance with foreign law in foreign countries.
Winter 2035: As tensions run high during a trade dispute between China, Greater Korea, and Malaysia, rouge cyberattackers kill thousands of people using unpatched implants. Calls increase for implants to be recalled, but the flu season looks to be the worst in a long time, and critics say superbugs caused by on-demand antibiotics use via the CleanU app (YC 2033) could be more fatal than the unpatched implants. After heavy lobbying, Google supports Android Z for the Nexus Implant.
Spring 2036: The trade dispute worsens, and after a misstep on the part of a US mediator, a cyberattack from "patriotic Chinese citizens" kills several local, state, and federal government workers and politicians. Presidential hopeful Chris Schwarzenegger is killed. The United States demands sanctions on China, alleging the attack to have originating from PLA-controlled networks. Both countries enter into an economic death spiral as they try to disentangle their economies. A SpaceX launch is misinterpreted by a Chinese early-warning system as a nuclear launch and, fearing annihilation, the PRC unleashes its now-substantial nuclear arsenal on America and NATO. Russia interprets Ukraine-bound missiles as attacks on its soil and, confused by the stealth signatures, fires on NATO as well. The United Kingdom is destroyed instantaneously. This escalates to a full-scale nuclear exchange between the United States, China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, New Rhodesia, and France. The world is a smoking ruin. As the radiation slowly declines over the next few million years, the wasteland left behind is left to the lichen.
Moral of the story? Stay away from Google's medical initiatives.
I am not necessarily convinced, but kudos for an imaginative, interesting, passionate contribution to the debate. With lots of nicely constructed details.
