I wonder how long it will take them to start trying to write legislation to automatically cut someone off SNAP benefits if their Glucose, Cholesterol, Heart Rate, Blood Pressure, etc Levels go to High as reported by a Wearable directly to the Government and accuse them of having a poor diet based on their Wearable data and then restrict or remove their benefits. I could see them also basing Medicare and Medicaid payout and benefits on the overall health score from your wearable.
RFK Jr. wants every American to wear 'health tracking' device by 2029
Health and Human Services Secretary
Robert F. Kennedy Jr has once again stirred the pot with his
latest audacious proposal that all Americans should be equipped with a "wearable" health tracking device by 2029.
In his address to the House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee on Tuesday,
Kennedy pledged to launch "one of the biggest advertising campaigns in HHS history" to realize his vision of wearable health tracking devices. These include smartwatches and fitness trackers like Apple Watches, FitBit, and Oura Rings, which monitor metrics such as blood pressure, heart rate, and blood oxygen levels.
Kennedy believes these devices could contribute to his mission of "Making America Healthy Again". It came as
health fears were raised about Donald Trump as viewers spotted a clue in his clothes.
"It's a way people can take control of their own health. They can take responsibility," he stated. "They can see, as you know, what food is doing to their glucose levels, their heart rates and a number of other metrics as they eat it, and they can begin to make good judgments about their diet, about their physical activity, about the way that they live their lives."
Kennedy asserted that he has friends who've "changed their lives" by wearing glucose monitors, aiding them in weight loss and liberating themselves from diabetes. On the topic of providing every American with these health devices, Kennedy mentioned that his department was "exploring ways of making sure that those costs can be paid for."
He noted that the well-known weight loss medication Ozempic rings in at over $1,000 a month and touted that wearable fitness trackers could deliver equivalent results.
"If you can achieve the same thing with an $80 wearable, it's a lot better for the American people," he argued.
Despite Kennedy's portrayal of this as a thoughtful initiative, skeptics have voiced worries about the prospect of equipping every American with any form of tracking gadget. According to the Brown University Center for Digital Health, health information recorded by these devices is frequently uploaded to the cloud and might be traded to corporations, advertisers, or researchers without user approval.
The extensive data aggregation also triggers alarms about data breaches, which carry risks of identity theft.
Although many in the healthcare field endorse the use of wearable health monitoring gadgets, some caution that these devices could lead to medical anxiety, self-diagnosis, and self-treatment.
