Want an Apple Watch? For some Aetna customers, it’ll soon be covered

Enlarge / Two current-gen Apple Watch Sport models. (credit: Andrew Cunningham)

On Tuesday, health insurance giant Aetna announced that it’s starting a new app-based health program that will exclusively rely on Apple products—namely, the iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch. As part of the program, Aetna will subsidize Apple Watches for select customers as well as offer the smartwatches at no cost to their own 50,000 employees beginning in early 2017.

The news from Aetna, which covers about 23 million people nationwide, may please its Apple-loving customers. But no one will be as happy as Apple, which has recently pushed for its devices to be fashioned into medical hubs. Earlier this year, the company unveiled CareKit, an open source platform for creating healthcare apps.

In a joint statement with Aetna, Apple CEO Tim Cook said the following:

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Source: Ars Technica – Want an Apple Watch? For some Aetna customers, it’ll soon be covered