Slashdot Mirror
Chinese Hackers Targeted Insurer To Learn About US Healthcare (engadget.com)
hackingbear writes: When Anthem revealed a data breach that exposed the details of more than 80 million people, the incident raised a lot of questions: who would conduct such a hack against a health insurance firm? Investigators finally have some answers... and they're not quite what you'd expect. Reportedly, the culprits were Chinese hackers helping their nation understand how US medical care works. It may be part of a concerted campaign to get ready for 2020, when China plans to offer universal health care. Next, we should outsource politicians from China to fix our healthcare system.
Well now they have figured it out can they clue the rest of us in?
Insurers exist to prevent people from understanding how healthcare works.
" Reportedly, the culprits were Chinese hackers helping their nation understand how US medical care works. "
If you're rich, you pay for your medical care out of pocket.
If you're not rich, you pay for health insurance that doesnt cover anything and then you die.
I'd rather trust the Chinese hackers over Engadget, thanks.
Next, they're going to hack German restaurants to get some tasty recipes. I hear they're also hacking into Martin O'Malley's email to figure out how to run a great political campaign. And looking for dental information from the English. Etc.
Do you have ESP?
Every time it is the Chinese, the Russians or even the North Koreans. I would like to see some evidence of this. I have no doubt they, and everyone else for that mater, are involved in these shenanigans, but I highly doubt that there is clear cut evidence, or even just circumstantial evidence.
As far as I know every competent hacker uses zombies as proxies which leaves nothing to trace, if done properly.
I mean, would a Chinese politician be any worse than a US politician, really? Any more corrupt? Any less likable? Moreover, the US a basically already implementing mechanisms of rights confiscation, ubiquitous domestic surveillance, state-controlled economy, a police state, etc. We're practically already China, in terms of how the government functionally operates. Would allowing Chinese politicians be all that bad?
The China bashing in western media is just getting ridiculous.
The United States - the most utterly dismal health care system in the industrialised world, is the last place on earth that anyone would look for a good example of how to implement health care. This looks like more US propaganda. Slashdot is rapidly becoming the mouth piece of a mad US regime, obsessed with China and Russia. The Chinese certainly have nothing to learn from the catastrophic failures of private sector profit from the sick and dying in America. Europe is the place to learn about how to implement health care correctly. The US system is truly awful, amoral, and utterly inhuman. If I lived there, I'd certainly leave. What an awful country.
The Chinese trying to understand our healthcare system? GOOD. LUCK. BTW if you do figure it out, please explain it to us, Much obliged.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Dear USA
Are you serious?
Feel free to blame China for everything bad - even imaginary incidents or those you perpetrate yourself - we'll believe it.
Noone is going to believe that China is stupid enough to even consider imitating your 'health'-care system.
Is this an attempt to paint the US 'health'-care system as something worth imitating?
Requiem for the American Dream
There's lots of money once you cut out the insurance companies, lawyers, and too high malpractice suit awards but money isn't the issue in the US. There's a fear of socialism there and for some reason providing healthcare to everyone is viewed as almost the ultimate step towards it. Never mind that policing, fire fighting, and education are all public services and that providing healthcare would be a great boost to productivity. If people can go to the doctor when problems are starting then they remain healthier and it costs the system less money overall.
Hospital billing rates and contract insurance reimbursement rates are no great secret. Government reimbursement rates are certainly no secret (medicare/medicaid).
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
I think they would be trying to find out NOT how to do it.
The USA has the worst public healthcare system in the developed world on a cost benefit ratio.
Americans seem to have this; well if you get sick its your fault attitude; and that general free public healthcare, as offered by almost every other industrialised nation, is akin to a communist assault.
46137
We would have to seriously jack up the tax rate in order to pay for something like that.
We shouldn't have to. We already spend twice as much per capita on health care than any other country, with worse outcomes. Half of our health care system is already socialized (Medicare/Medicaid). That means if we could just get costs and quality in line with the rest of the world, we could cover everyone, get better results, and eliminate all private insurance premiums using no more tax money than we're already spending.
No we don't. That's just media propaganda.
It's the damned truth. Look it up. It looks like you've been fed on a diet of too much talk radio propaganda yourself.
We eliminate the cost of insurance premiums by getting rid of the ridiculous cost structure of health care in this country. There are dozens of countries who already do this just fine, and the people there live longer and healthier lives. This isn't rocket science.
That's funny, I know a lot of Americans that have gotten shitty and incompetent health care, misdiagnoses, and poor coverage. As long as we're throwing around anecdotes, I know one guy that was forced to turn down a good job offer because their insurance wouldn't cover his cancer meds. I also know a woman who only stays with her abusive cheating husband because she can't afford insurance for her Crohn's disease.
I never understand arguments like yours. Our health care system sucks. It's just as prone to poor care as any other system. It reduces freedom of the individual (unless you count corporate "individuals," where it adds one more control over their employees). It's expensive, it doesn't cover everyone, and we all end up picking up the tab for the uninsured anyway. It ties health care to employment, which is ridiculous - people making close to minimum wage can't afford it without subsidies, and if you lose your job, you lose your insurance. And the insurance companies will do everything they can to discourage you from going to the doctor in the first place; that's what the deductible is for, as well as the common practice of having all the "in network" doctors based in another city.
No system is perfect, but ours is just downright bad. You want to say the Canadian system sucks, go ahead - but don't pretend that ours is great.
Those who can't do, teach. Those who can't teach either, do tech support.