Health IT could also have detrimental effects for patients—effects that promoters don’t tout in press statements. On Monday, the Washington Post explored the dark side of all this free-floating health information. The Post offered a squirm-inducing angle on the topic: Big health information services companies like Milliman and Ingenix, a division of UnitedHealth Group (which owns mega insurance carrier UnitedHealth Care), are already collecting information from databases containing millions of Americans’ prescription drug records. Information companies use the data to create a sort of credit report for insurers and others who want to know how sick you are, what drugs you take, and so forth.

An entrepreneur who built one of the databases told the Post that an insurer “would be able to know that you have a high, near-intractable cholesterol problem” and could avoid a costly blood test. It also could mean that the insurer wouldn’t have to pay for the test. If the patient could avoid the test, that’s good—but what if the doctor ordered it anyway and the insurer refused to pay? Health IT has its pluses and minuses. Here’s pretty important minus: an insurer could also use the information to boot you out of the health plan. Here’s another: a drug company could try to switch you to a different medicine that helps build their market share. There are a lot of directions to go on stories about health IT, and journalists should look at the Post story as a good starting point.

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