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Buried In the Healthcare.gov Source: "No Expectation of Privacy"

Posted by timothy on from the just-initial-here-and-here-and-here-and-here dept.

realized writes "The Obamacare website Healthcare.gov has a hidden terms of service that is not shown to people when they sign up. The hidden terms, only viewable if you 'view source' on the site, says that the user has 'no reasonable expectation of privacy regarding any communication or data transiting or stored on this information system.' Sadly, the taxpayer-funded website still does not work for most people, so it's hard to confirm – though when it's fixed in two months, we should finally be able to see it." Note: As the article points out, that phrasing is "not visible to users and obviously not intended as part of the terms and conditions." So users shouldn't worry that they've actually, accidentally agreed to any terms more onerous than the ones they can read on the signup page, but it's an interesting inclusion. What's the last EULA you read thoroughly?

26 of 365 comments (clear)

  1. How do we get Congress to sign up? by WillAdams · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I want legislation limiting their healthcare and other benefits to those which are available to the general public.

    --
    Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
    1. Re:How do we get Congress to sign up? by jerpyro · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Sadly, I think a lot of people want a lot of things from Congress right now.

    2. Re:How do we get Congress to sign up? by the+eric+conspiracy · · Score: 3, Informative

      Congress is ALREADY required by the ACA to use the plans available from the exchange.

      Whomever tells you they have an exemption is a fucking liar.

      What is now on the table is whether or not Congress (including the staffers who are not particularly well paid) will get a subsidy like everyone else who has employer covered healthcare insurance does.

    3. Re:How do we get Congress to sign up? by mjr167 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Not only that, vote against anyone with a R or D by their name

    4. Re:How do we get Congress to sign up? by SJHillman · · Score: 4, Informative

      It's kind of misleading to say "nobody else is". I know plenty of people who have already had their plans canceled or changed as a direct result of Obamacare; many more have already been warned of sharp premium increases by their insurance company due to Obamacare requirements, which may force some people to cancel plans they can no longer afford.

    5. Re:How do we get Congress to sign up? by cdrudge · · Score: 3, Informative

      What is now on the table is whether or not Congress (including the staffers who are not particularly well paid) will get a subsidy like everyone else who has employer covered healthcare insurance does.

      Republicans tried to embarrass the Democrats by requiring Congress members and and their staff to go to the exchanges. Democrats embraced the proposal except it created the dilemma where the Federal Government has no means to make contributions towards exchange-purchased insurance, and since the government offers insurance but the individuals are required to go to the exchanges, they don't technically qualify for the subsidy either. They shot themselves in the foot with the requirement (not that it's a bad requirement) and they're just trying to figure out how to pay for the benefit they already received.

    6. Re:How do we get Congress to sign up? by Jon_S · · Score: 3, Informative

      This.

      Ironically, if the employer mandate wasn't delayed a year (still don't know what was up with that), it would seem to me that Congress could have been fined for dropping coverage for their employees upon the ACA go-live.

      Congress is the only employer that is actually required by the ACA to drop their existing coverage of their workers and require them to purchase their own insurance (and contrary to popular belief, you don't have to purchase your insurance on the exchanges; that was just supposed to make it easier - although so far that isn't the case - and would be the only way you get the subsidies if you were eligible for them)

      All other employers (above 50 employees) are *required* to provide health insurance to their employees (although enforcement has been delayed a year). So yes, Congress got "exempted", but not in the way the ACA-haters are making it out to be. The "exemption" was actually put in by Charles Grassley, a republican, because he thought that this would kill the bill. However, congress actually said "sure, whatever, we don't have a problem going through the exchanges just like all the people who don't have coverage now". The "exemption" actually requires these employees to get their insurance through the exchanges (or on their own if they want), rather than to just stay on their employer's group plan like most other full time workers in the country.

      The only remaining debate is whether to take the money that Congress was previously kicking in as a contribution to their employees' group health care and add it onto their employees' paychecks instead, which seems fair to me.

    7. Re:How do we get Congress to sign up? by Salgak1 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I'd like a few things FOR Congress. Tar and Feathers come to mind, for starters. . . .

    8. Re: How do we get Congress to sign up? by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Insurance is, by definition, payment to mitigate risk. If one has the ability to back up that risk, as the 1% do, it is on average better to not get insurance.

      This may be a good strategy for some (most?) types of insurance, like the rental car collision damage insurance you mentioned, but perhaps not for health insurance. Some health care costs can be quite high, far exceeding the price of the premiums, and having/using insurance can get you a much better rate on most of that, lowering your total expense.

      For example, my wife died of a brain tumor (Glioblastoma Multiforme) in 2006. The list (non-insurance) price for her chemotherapy medicine, Temodar was $11,000 (not a typo) for a one-month supply (one bottle of pills); her HMO co-pay was $40 (forty) - my BC/BS co-pay would have been 10%. She would have needed 4 months, had she lived longer.

      The list price for the treatment she actually received in the 7 weeks from diagnosis to death was about $300,000, but I only paid about $500 - her premiums were far less than the list price of her treatment.

      --
      It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
    9. Re: How do we get Congress to sign up? by paiute · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Rather than paying $300,000, you and your wife would have had to come to terms that her time on Earth was now limited because you simply were not rich enough. Happens every day on this planet.

      ...in the Third World and the United States.

      --
      If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
    10. Re:How do we get Congress to sign up? by Dishevel · · Score: 4, Insightful
      Obama did not write it. He has no idea what is in it.

      Congress had to pass it before they could figure out what it meant. This was written by lobbyists and bureaucrats each piece designed to make money for some individual company with no regard to what it means on the whole.

      Every congress critter that votes on any piece of legislation that they do not understand should be thrown of of their position. After they are raped and killed. Any law that can not be understood by someone without a law degree in 20 minutes should be null and void. Complicated laws are always wrong.

      And fuck every piece of shit that has said "Their ought to be a law" in the last 50 years.

      --
      Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
    11. Re:How do we get Congress to sign up? by Frobnicator · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Are you sure? The harder they fail at fixing the current mess, the harder it'll be for them to get hired afterwards. Nothing disillusions the supporters of a broken system like its colossal, unmitigated, blatant failure.

      In total agreement.

      Both sides are constantly blaming the other for the deadlock in Congress. They haven't passed a budget since April 2009. That is one of the things the Constitution requires them to do, and they haven't done their job in almost five years.

      Both sides blame the other. And both sides are right. It is like the expression "No individual raindrop believes it caused the flood."

      Just like the raindrops, it isn't an individual drip that caused it, it is ALL of them together. Even the ones that are trying to make it better, they still bear some responsibility for the problems. Because ALL of them are responsible, ALL of them should be fired. Many people say "Not my congresspeople, they represent my views!" No. All of them contributed to the mess, ALL of them should go.

      I don't want to see things fail. I would much prefer to be watching a colossal success and the establishment of policies that the entire world holds up as monuments to human achievement. Instead we are watching doomsday debt clocks, there are discussions about global economic collapse, and millions of people wonder about losing their livelihood. I don't like watching things fail, but if they do fail, I hope it fails in such a way that people will again seize control of government, rather than letting government seize them. The best failures are the ones that lead to change and future success.

      --
      //TODO: Think of witty sig statement
    12. Re:How do we get Congress to sign up? by Bartles · · Score: 4, Informative

      I buy excellent individual insurance now. My application to enroll on the exchange was just rejected, and I was told I need to enroll in medicaid, because my income is too low at 174% of the poverty line. I just got some quotes for insurance purchased off the exchange and my cost will increas 300%-500%, making buying insurance impossible for me to afford. So everyone is not going to be paying taxes into that. In fact I just got moved from the taxpayer to the dependent category. This law will be a disaster.

    13. Re:How do we get Congress to sign up? by dosilegecko · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Your views on this government really align with mine, I thought I was the only one who thought this way. There should be no such thing as career politicians. They are exactly what is wrong with this country. Obamacare is also a train wreck for small businesses. I have seen this first hand.

    14. Re:How do we get Congress to sign up? by LordLimecat · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Obama signed it. Its his constitutional responsibility to know whats in it.

      Sorry, Im not buying that he rallied for it and signed it but had no idea what was in it.

    15. Re:How do we get Congress to sign up? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      And yet, before Obama became president, we didn't seem to have problems passing budgets. At what point is pragmatism going to reemerge? At some point people will recognize that there's a common denominator underlying all these problems.

      The Republicans? If you recall the Republicans did the same thing they are doing now when Clinton was president. Since Reagan their M.O. has been to spend and borrow recklessly while they have control of the White House and oppose everything when the Dems have the White House.

  2. Cut & Paste by wherley · · Score: 5, Informative

    This is boilerplate language from many Federal sites and would seem to be a template cut/paste thing. Examples:

    https://logonsm.faa.gov/dotrso/certoptional/myfaa/

    https://ampedc1.cms.gov/amserver/UI/Login

    http://hsesacpt21.smdi.com/jsso/SSOLogin

    https://fedstar.phmsa.dot.gov/FedSTAR/Default.aspx

    etc.

  3. Stop pushing the bogus 643 million $ number by andy1307 · · Score: 3, Informative

    I know this is slashdot but stop digging. Here

  4. Its *not* $634M by dieswaytoofast · · Score: 5, Informative

    Even the source link points out that its not $634M (except, since it does so in a "Fair and Balanced" way, you can't really tell)
    You can either actually read the article in gory detail, or better yet, go read this breakdown of the numbers.
    TL;DR --> its around $55.7M (which is still a lot, but is - decidedly - not $634M)

  5. let me translate that by slashmydots · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "no reasonable expectation of privacy regarding any communication or data transiting or stored on this information system" translated into HIPAA means "lol this website is completely illegal."

    1. Re:let me translate that by intermodal · · Score: 3

      That was my first thought upon seeing this. This is a pure violation of HIPAA. If my company did this, we'd be sued into oblivion in no time, provided anyone bothered to read what they signed.

      --
      In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
  6. Re:Sooo... by drjoe1e6 · · Score: 4, Funny

    "Upon being pushed from an american vagina you have absolutely no expectation of privacy or actual security"

    My kids were born via Cesarian, you insensitive clod!

    --
    Lose = not win ...... Loose = not tight
  7. closer to $500 million with salaries, servers by raymorris · · Score: 3, Informative

    $55 million original estimate for site development
    $90 million paid to one company for site development
    $500 million total site cost including servers, salaries, etc.

  8. designed to obfuscate actual prices of plans by bigpat · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Interesting Forbes article on how healthcare.gov is designed to prevent people to see the full prices of the healthcare plans which is what is causing the upfront bottleneck. On the one hand it makes sense that you don't want to scare people off with high healthcare insurance prices until you know if they are eligible for subsidies, but on the other hand it means you probably have to verify the data entered against what are potentially hundreds of millions of records just to display a screen with prices for the plans.

    Seems a better option would simply to take the persons word for it up front, let them see the prices displayed depending on the personal and family information they entered and then only do the background verification after they "checkout" and actually purchase a plan. That way they just get an email later on if there is a problem with anything they entered or if the prices change based on something determined based on the background check and credit check. Or if as news reports suggest they are going to have to go through an income verification process as part of the Senate compromise, then doing the credit check up front in "real time" is an extra step anyway. Could even make the insurance companies do the final eligibility check as part of their 15% commission.

    Trying to process through hundreds of millions of records in less than tens of seconds is a stupid thing to try to do just to keep people from finding out what your prices really are even if you have hundreds of millions of dollars to blow through. They could have fully insured 100,000 more people for the money that has been wasted just on healthcare.gov.

    1. Re:designed to obfuscate actual prices of plans by the+eric+conspiracy · · Score: 3, Informative

      Oh give me a break.

      This information is already available on multiple sources and on Healthcare.gov. I am fucking tired of these articles that have NOT been researched or are published with the intent of misleading people.

      Plan information from Healtchare.gov without signing in:

      https://www.healthcare.gov/find-premium-estimates/

      https://data.healthcare.gov/dataset/QHP ... /ba45-xusy

      Example of plan information from 3rd party sources:

      http://www.valuepenguin.com/

      The actual fact is that healthcare.gov. in the first two weeks of operation has made plan price comparisons FAR easier than it has ever been. This could be a major consumer positive event in healthcare.

    2. Re:designed to obfuscate actual prices of plans by wile_e_wonka · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I'm pretty sure I'm not eligible for subsidies. But the system for figuring it out is a joke. It asks if I have any tax deductions such as student loan interest. So, I pulled out my tax return and put in practically every deduction. It isn't clear which deductions are eligible to be deducted.

      Even so, between my income and my wife's I'm almost certainly not eligible for any subsidies based on the information I provided. So, for those of us whose self-input information indicates $0 subsidy, why not just let us see the price? It can't possibly be worse than my holy-fraking-expensive plan available through my employer.

      So, I agree that they've set it up backward, and should take people's word on showing prices and just say "eligibility for reduced prices will be confirmed prior to purchase." But even with the current backward system, there is no reason that the unsubsidized prices shouldn't be shown for those of us whose information indicates that we aren't eligible for a subsidy.