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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.

12 of 157 comments (clear)

  1. Good Luck with that by Crashmarik · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Insurers exist to prevent people from understanding how healthcare works.

  2. Let me save you some trouble... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    " 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.

    1. Re:Let me save you some trouble... by ArmoredDragon · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I'm not particularly rich, but my employer offered health care plan is going to cover my kidney transplant operation at 100% (no deductible payment required, regardless of whether or not I've used it already.)

      I feel bad for Chinese people, because the condition that caused what I have (IgA Nephropathy) is by far more common there, and due to a cultural quirk (the belief that the body needs to be buried whole,) practically nobody actually donates organs. The only option there is to pay a donor under the table, which with or without coverage you're looking at easily six figures worth of expense.

      So at least in China, you really do indeed need to be rich, and you will pay out of pocket. And what's worse, is that your donor barely gets enough money to buy crappy Apple products.

    2. Re:Let me save you some trouble... by Gavagai80 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Obamacare has not made insurance more affordable, not even for "low paid working stiffs".

      It certainly has. I had to drop my catastrophic-only insurance coverage around 2008 because it was just too expensive even for the limited coverage. Now with the medicaid expansion I've got full socialized medicine.

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    3. Re:Let me save you some trouble... by orlanz · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Sorry it sucked for you. But I personally know two people that without Obamacare's exchanges, one would probably not be talking today, and the other would have moved to another country for the same medication and medical service but 1/5 the cost. Sorry, but prior to Obamacare, there were a lot of people like them who "just got by" because they weren't chronically sick to be taken in by emergency care, but were slowly wasting away because the healthcare market felt they were unprofitable.

      Obamacare is no where near perfect, but for gods sake, the US couldn't touch anything in Healthcare for over 3 decades! All those presidents and congressmen in that time were useless for the sick and needy of the US.

  3. Those hackers are still at work by Trailer+Trash · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.

    1. Re:Those hackers are still at work by viperidaenz · · Score: 4, Insightful

      No, they hacked an American health insurance company to figure out how healthcare in American got so broken. They probably don't want to make the same mistakes.

  4. Very ambitious. by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 4, Insightful
    My colleagues are Masters and PhDs and they hack out C++ to solve Maxwell's equations for a living. These are people who got 790 verbal, 800 quant and 790 analysis in GRE. They solve London Times Cryptic cross word puzzles for fun. They made several valiant attempts and have given up whimpering incoherently about copay, coinsurance and out of pocket maxima. (See I even learnt from them plural of maximum is maxima ). Again, they/we did not try to understand the whole US Healthcare, just our employee health benefit plan, the flex spending account, and the deductible partly kicked in by our employer.

    The Chinese trying to understand our healthcare system? GOOD. LUCK. BTW if you do figure it out, please explain it to us, Much obliged.

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    sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
  5. Re:Help by viperidaenz · · Score: 4, Insightful

    They were trying to figure out how not to do it.

  6. How not to do it! by labnet · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

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  7. Re:How embarrassing by Waffle+Iron · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  8. Re:How embarrassing by spauldo · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

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    Those who can't do, teach. Those who can't teach either, do tech support.