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Obamacare Exchanges Months Behind In Testing IT Data Security
An anonymous reader sends this excerpt from a Reuters report:
"The federal government is months behind in testing data security for the main pillar of Obamacare: allowing Americans to buy health insurance on state exchanges due to open by October 1. The missed deadlines have pushed the government's decision on whether information technology security is up to snuff to exactly one day before that crucial date, the Department of Health and Human Services' inspector general said in a report. As a result, experts say, the exchanges might open with security flaws or, possibly but less likely, be delayed.'They've removed their margin for error,' said Deven McGraw, director of the health privacy project at the non-profit Center for Democracy & Technology. 'There is huge pressure to get (the exchanges) up and running on time, but if there is a security incident they are done. It would be a complete disaster from a PR viewpoint.' The most likely serious security breach would be identity theft, in which a hacker steals the social security numbers and other information people provide when signing up for insurance."
By the history of large government IT projects, this is pretty well normal. The DOD, IRS, and just about every large department has had anything from minor to major disasters when setting up or updating systems.
I think too much of this is due to government bidding requirements that put too much emphasis on who you know more than what you know. I have seen too many stories where competence is the last thing looked at for contractors.
Why's that? My brother is self employed and his insurance premiums have so far doubled under the "affordable care act". I don't know mine exactly only because I'm under a group policy through work, though with the numbers they post for what my insurance is worth, that's gone up by roughly $1000 a year and I'm single, early 30s, non-smoker, and at 5 foot 10 and 170 lbs, not exactly obese. As another data point, I'm currently working on my masters, and we are automatically enrolled in the campus health insurance plan and have to waive it. It was $798 PER SEMESTER! And it's not what I'd call great coverage. When I did my undergrad it was like 200 a semester, and I graduated in 2006. Not like it was eons ago.
I'd say calling obamacare a cluster is quite accurate so far. Seriously, can anybody come forward and say that their insurance premiums are cheaper now? I heard that the minimum coverage in cali was estimated to be something like 340 a month for a family of 4. Thats pretty much a BMW car payment. Not what I call affordable.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/16/opinion/behind-double-digit-premium-increases-for-health-insurance.html?_r=0
And...
First successful organ transplant not counting skin as 1954... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_transplantation
Hip replacement in 1940... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hip_replacement#History
MRI for medical uses 1972... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_resonance_imaging#History
First commercial CT scan done in 1971... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-ray_computed_tomography#History
MightyYar, do you know _anything_ about what comes out of your mouth?
The effective income tax rate (i.e. taking into account exclusions and the different brackets) is more like 35-40% for a middle-class family. You don't pass even a 50% effective rate until you're making well north of €200k/yr.
And note that this rate includes health-care, which in the U.S. is billed separately. It also includes university education, which in the U.S. is billed separately. If you add up what a typical American pays for [federal income tax + state income tax + payroll tax + student-loan payments + healthcare premiums/copays], it's higher than what most Danes pay if you're in a middle-class bracket. The comparison is even more favorable to Denmark if you're an entrepreneur: once you add in that self-employed Americans have to pay double payroll taxes (15.3%) and have to buy individual health insurance, Denmark starts to look a lot cheaper!
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Campus health care is often a scam. The University is getting a kickback for signing you up. They want the cheapest plans for the employees they care about, not some grad students.
$340 is not a BMW payment, more like a normal car payment for a normal term loan. A cheaper BMW like the base 3 series sedan goes for $32550, a 60 month term at 1% interest would result in a $556.40 monthly payment.
Minimum coverage costs have gone up now that minimum coverage actually has to cover something. Some of those very cheap plans had low lifetime cost ceilings. Meaning when you needed it most, like you had a major medical problem, you would run out of insurance coverage.
From a purely precedent standpoint, the OP is at least somewhat correct. This is the first time in the history of the US that any government - federal, state, or local - has been given the power to force a citizen (with the threat of fines and arrest) to purchase a commercial product. It was very obvious that Obama wanted to make this a precedent - he didn't take the easy way out and claim it was a tax, he wanted it to be clear that this was a new power for government.
Think about it a little - what other things can you think of that a citizen is required to do by a government as a result of being born and NOT as the result of a personal choice?
* Must you have a SSN? Nope. You are not required to apply for one.
* Do you have to pay taxes? If you choose to not work, no job, no income, no taxes (I assume your family is willing to support you).
* Do you have to attend public school? No, you can be home-schooled or just not attend (your parents might get in trouble if the gov't knows about you, or you could've been born at home).
The only thing I can think of is that males of a certain age must register for the draft. That's literally all, except now you must also buy insurance.
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
If one can look at Europe's huge deficits, debt, and unfunded liabilities - which are not even included in their debt numbers - and say they can afford it...
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.