There was a story today in the Washington Post about how health and insurance companies are creating "health credit reports" from databases that contain millions of records of patient prescription drug information.

The "credit report" is used to judge the risks and potential costs of a person applying for health or life insurance.

According to the Post, an insurer can get a risk profile analysis in minutes from a data aggregation - mining company like Ingenix and Milliman which can access the previous five years of prescription data for an applicant applying for insurance (assuming the applicant has been taking prescriptions over that time frame).

A "health credit score" is given for the applicant - the higher the score, the higher the risk of future medical bills.

The scoring analysis also can be used to verify an applicant's medical history - according to the Post, 10% of the time the analysis shows that something has been left out.

Insurance rates (or even the ability to get coverage) are in part set by your score.

As a Tim Sparapani, senior legislative counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union, said in the Post story this is just the start of the "commodification" of electronic medical records by third parties.