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Hackers breach HealthCare.gov system, get data on 75,000
A government computer system that interacts with HealthCare.gov was hacked earlier this month, compromising the sensitive personal data of some 75,000 people, officials said Friday.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services made the announcement late in the afternoon ahead of a weekend, a time slot agencies often use to release unfavorable developments.
Officials said the hacked system was shut down and technicians are working to restore it before sign-up season starts Nov. 1 for health care coverage under the Affordable Care Act.
About 10 million people currently have private coverage under former President Barack Obama's health care law.
Consumers applying for subsidized coverage have to provide extensive personal information, including Social Security numbers, income, and citizenship or legal immigration status.
The system that was hacked is used by insurance agents and brokers to directly enroll customers. All other sign-up systems are working.
Also at Engadget and TechCrunch
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 23 2018, @12:45AM (1 child)
Specifics? ACA added to the list of ailments that must be covered, not subtracted. Yes, requiring it to cover a list of things may make insurance more expensive, but I'm skeptical it made your PPO cover less. Your PPO may have voluntarily decided to cut some covered ailments, but that's not the ACA doing it directly. You can shop around for other PPOs if they give you a bad deal.
If anyone has a better general HC plan, let's see it. All I see from GOP is either vague talking points, or less coverage when they offer something that's actually computable. There's no magic lunch. If you look around the world, the best systems in terms of both cost and service tend to resemble single payer.
Some say, "let me pay for only what I want to cover", but that's not really insurance: it doesn't pool the costs and risks. It's pretend insurance.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 23 2018, @03:44PM
"Your PPO may have voluntarily"
No. They CANCELED my PPO. They didn't change the policy, they unilaterally canceled it. Then they sent me a letter telling me I had a whole new account with totally different coverage. I went from ~$200/m $2k deductable no copay, to my dick in my hand and a letter offering a new account at around $300/m with a %50 copay.
BCBS canceled my policy. Period. End of of fucking story. Then they committed mail fraud by billing me for a different policy under a different contract I never solicited or signed up for. And if it happened to me, it happened to thousands of people, who were mostly private contractors or in the trades. But you know what? My neighbors kids are getting dental care from O-care and I'd have to pay for my own if I signed on.
Yes I understand this contradicts what Obama said on TV hundreds of times. But it is in fact what I experienced.
And the DNC takes victory laps, and drinks champagne over O-care, and hails the extraordinary glory of their achievement. Yet there is STILL no transparency in product pricing in the health care industry making it one of the most financially opaque, and non-competetive large industries in the country.
And I am supposed to vote for the DNC because Trump is corrupt and shags tarts?
You know what? I was a criminal last year for not having health insurance. This year I'm not. There is no affordable policy in O-care that doesn't make a critical care injury a bankrupting event for me. And I've been healthy all my life. But what you saw on TV somehow is supposed to be more real and important to me, than those two facts?
That you don't understand how this could be, is not in question. The DNC doesn't understand it either. O-care fucked over a lot of Americans. If you don't know that, you are in a filter bubble.
Further, don't lecture on the menutia of insurance or economics if you don't understand it. The issue here is not ideology, it is implementation. The current implementation is lacking in transparency, and violates half a dozen sections of the Constitution, regardless of what SCOTUS has to say about it. There are dozens of ways to move forward, but none offered by either the DNC or RNC solve these problems. I was your friend two years ago. If I'm your enemy now, perhaps you might consider what part you played in that?
Oh right. You don't do that. You're a demopublican.