I was actually hoping part 5 was the end of the Attack Series but it may go on for a few more writing as I review what is in the news today. In healthcare consumers are already feeling the pinch of having to re-construct past records, data that we have not entered but it has been collected over the years and once again I will refer back to the movie Sicko as Michael Moore did such a good job with his example with the woman who’s medical claim for her surgery was rescinded as they found way back a number of years, a minor yeast infection she didn’t report.
Did a human find this, no, it was the algorithm. Did human allow this decision without perhaps any discussion, yes they did. This is the problem with the way math and data is used today, not enough area of forgiveness. Let’s face it between health insurers and credit agencies they want consumers to go back and correct any and all errors that have been recorded about them. Why you may wonder? Their algorithms have to function and make decision with every bit of information that they can dig up about you. This article is all about this with a new company, CoreLogic that is marketing and selling more data about all of us beyond the standard credit reports.
The workload will be shifted to the consumer and how many of us have 100% clean records? I should have said “squeaky” clean records, not many. Actually in Part 4 of the Attack of the Killer Algorithms I explained what is involved for consumers and with the current status quo of customer service and the time it takes to either clear or explain issues, it’s could be a big load of time coming your way.
Attack of the Killer Algorithms-Occupy Wall Street Part 4 Health Insurance Style - One More App For Folks Who Are Tired of Flawed Algorithms That Require A Ton of Work and Research Time To Create “Perfect” Data Files for Insurers And Others Analytics Processes
Over the years many have said to get anywhere in life “you need to take risks” and for the middle class the opportunity to finance and get help with taking risks is getting smaller. You may have an item in your past, but the way demented digital illiterates work today is that they see anything on there as a blemish which is not the way it should be. There are errors and there are items reported that may relative to court cases, punitive damage and so forth reported with this additional information that is now coming available with CoreLogic and their new partnership with FICO.
CoreLogic has formed a partnership with FICO who is already in the process of selling algorithms with mismatched data which connects public information about you and combines it with your credit score to tell if you as a medical patient will take your prescriptions. Somebody needs to start calling some of these folks on “mis 
matched data” the discriminates as now we have “Discrimination by the Algorithm” and it’s showing in more places all the time. Last time I wrote about the FICO mismatched data it all ended up over at the Daily Kos via another publisher as an awareness.
FICO Analytics Press Release Marketing Credit Scoring Algorithms to Predict Medication Adherence–Update (Opinion)
Again by the time that the parameters of the analytics are driven down to fine points, almost everyone will have some kind blemish and what layer of forgiveness will be given. Opportunities for the middle class are again being narrowed down and the only way to take a “risk” will be collaborating with another human that doesn’t get wrapped up in all the algorithms that are on one’s record. We need a certain amount of credit checks and I don’t discount that at all but now the credit agencies are also building “predictive behavior” analytics to determine if they can with math predict if you will be a good risk or not. The Netflix algorithms that guesses what you may like is only 60%, so can see that with the amount of flawed data in files over the years coming to surface how screwed we may be? Here’s how the MIB who collects ton of data on taxpayers even outside of insurance these days markets…sound like the credit lines here…we will all end up being “problem applications”….think about it.
To clean up one’s current credit record today entails the normal stuff, but add all the additional information that could be drummed up as to if you paid a cell phone bill late, and yes where they are going with all of this, how much chasing will consumers be it with, so sit on the phone with minimally staffed customer service people here or perhaps in the Philippines to help us.
Again when information is presented on a screen, the “cookie cutter” employees that are hired today only have that to go by and are given specific routines they need to follow by supervisors and may be asking you to provide all kinds of information to allow certain items to be forgiven. Again the middle class has all this bearing down with algorithms and analytics that run 24/7 on servers and yet here’s a story about a Quant on Wall Street that knowingly operated software that was not calculating financial investments correctly for 3 years. He knew it and didn’t do anything about it, so think about this and the math…how many others have math that could be questionable with the designed algorithms used for profit only? 
SEC Sues Quant–Undisclosed Error in Trading Algorithm- Miscalculating “Risk”-Healthcare Software Evaluates This Factor Too
We have taxpayer data being bought and sold and companies make millions, beyond even what Facebook does selling taxpayer data. What does the taxpayer get out of this? We get work to chase down and fix all the information that has been reported erroneously or even correctly over the years as those algorithms and analytics on the screen say go fix it. It’s time to license and tax corporate USA on data selling. Walgreens said not too long ago that their data selling business is worth just under $800 million. We didn’t have the types of data capabilities we have today even a few years ago but now the burden is on the middle class taxpayer to go and reconstruct a perfect healthcare or financial file if they want to make a move today in any direction, and that’s all of the 99% too.
Privacy Wanted–So Let’s Require Those Who Sell Web Data to Register and Tax the Transactions and Publicly Disclose Who They Sell To With a Federal Registry
I am going to add a little personal working input here as I have worked on computers as a consultant at hospitals and doctors offices and the tech sees it all and when I found stuff, not being a snoop but trouble shooting as I was called in to fix a computer or a network and I find pornography on a staff member’s computer or for that matter on a doctor’s computer, does my opinion change? You bet it does and it’s really something I would have rather not known. My perception has changed and while it may not change whether or not I like that person, I now know something about them that I really would have rather not known, but I am paid to fix a computer, server, network or whatever and find the problems. With having this additional information on a screen, as you won’t even have an “in person” opportunity here for the most part, guess what’s going to happen in the “world of perception”? It’s not going to be good.
So now we come down to the analytics and “scoring” a person with this additional information, how will the algorithms run? We see stats and skewed data all the time any more and how accurate will these assessments be and how will they discriminate the “land of opportunity”.
Welcome to the world of discrimination by the algorithm….
Of course companies need to market and sell this type of behavioral analytics information combined with numbers and how will it really be presented and remember a lot of that data could be flawed. Since I’m on that topic, here’s a real simple example, there are 30k living people in the Social Security Death Index. It may be a low percentage but if you are one of them listed in there nobody cares about the percentages. What I am trying to say here is that the odds with all the information gathered today presents a pretty good chance of a lot of flawed, skewed and marketed data.
Social Security Master Death Index Data Flawed–Over 31,000 Living Found in the Index
Here’s a couple more examples of skewed and flawed data….
HealthGrades And Other MD Rating and Referral Sites List “Dead Doctors” on Their MD Information Pages And Even Include the Insurance Plans the “Dead Doctors” Honor
City of Buffalo Has Paid Over $2 Million to Provide Health Insurance for Hundreds of Dead People-Some as Many as 4 Years
The odds with information coming from a multitude of places that there will be quite a few errors and flawed data just due to data input over the years, and we will have to chase it down and fix it all so both credit companies and insurance companies have the data to run their algorithms to see how “bad” we really are and how to create algorithms on how to “fix” us and predict what we may do even before we may have those thoughts ourselves. Listen to the radio broadcast below to see if you have in fact been naïve and gullible lately, as we all are by human nature, but this is a wake up call.
“Numbers Don’t Lie, But People Do”–Radio Interview from Charles Siefe–Journalists Take Note, He Addresses How Marketing And Bogus Statistics Are Sources of Problems That Mislead the Public & Government
I made a post a while back in jest but as time moves forward I think it is starting to become real with data addiction and abuse becoming the upcoming next 12 step program to appear. Someone even put out press release, which I found rather humorous to market consumers on this anal algorithm..it’s all marketing. One of the geeks I chat with said it was good Saturday Night Live material:)
”The Anal Algorithm”- An Algorithm To Address Treatment of Fecal Incontinence–Bowel Control Disorder Sphincter Therapy
And why is marketing all over the place? To sell those algorithms for risk, fun, and you name it but some have teeth and run on servers 24/7 and make life impacting decisions about all of us at some point in time. How much is that algorithm in the window?
Why Is Almost Everyone In Healthcare Marketing Their “Ass” Off
We have digital illiterates who buy in to this stuff and think everything they read is gospel when it is not, and then studies can get created from some of what is in print, we read it all the time out there. In a way I am doing the same thing here with putting the word “algorithms” center stage on this blog, but purpose is to educate and encourage learning as none of this happens without the math or the algorithms that run the process Everything just about requires some kind of IT infrastructure to function today and algorithms to run it. Look at how the algorithms twisted the mortgage business, could not have been done without those algos they sold and transparency is now just bringing that to task. 
If we don’t keep this in check and create algorithms for “accurate” results and not just those for “desired” results…the money stays in the hands of the 1% who hires folks from the 99% group to write the code and keep it that way and this is why we need to Occupy Algorithms pretty soon before the math takes even more away from the middle class. BD
Report on Jobs Program With Measures to Create Livelihoods–Fix the Math and Create Algorithms to Move Money and Re-Focus on Better Health Versus Risk Assessments
Anyone who has recently applied for a mortgage knows that lenders are already looking much more closely at your financial affairs. But soon, they’ll be able to easily delve into the deepest recesses of your financial life, accessing information that never before appeared on your credit report.
This week, a company called CoreLogic introduced a new type of credit file, which is based on the giant repository of consumer data it maintains on just about everything that most of the traditional credit bureaus do not: missed rental payments that have gone into collection, any evictions or child support judgments, as well as any applications for payday loans, along with your repayment history.
The idea, CoreLogic says, is to provide lenders with more details about prospective borrowers, supplementing what they already know through the more traditional credit reports furnished by the big three credit bureaus, Equifax, Experian and TransUnion. Moreover, CoreLogic has formed a partnership with FICO — the provider of one of the most popular credit scores used by lenders — which will formulate a new consumer score based on the new data.
Perhaps it’s not surprising that a company decided to pull together this information, since much of it is already publicly available. But because it comes on top of all the other information that’s being collected about you — your exact location at every minute, where you’ve been on the Web — you can’t help but feel that some of these companies know more about your activities than your spouse.
Lenders of all stripes, including auto lenders, have access to the reports, and they will be marketed to employers and insurers, too.
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