Hackers Stole Income, Immigration and Tax Data In Healthcare.gov Breach, Government Confirms (techcrunch.com)

Late last month, HealthCare.gov suffered a data breach exposing 75,000 customers. Details were sparse at the time of the breach, but have now learned that hackers obtained "inappropriate access" to a number of broker and agent accounts, which "engaged in excessive searching" of the government's healthcare marketplace systems. TechCrunch reports: [The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS)] didn't say how the attackers gained access to the accounts, but said it shut off the affected accounts "immediately." In a letter sent to affected customers this week (and buried on the Healthcare.gov website), CMS disclosed that sensitive personal data -- including partial Social Security numbers, immigration status and some tax information -- may have been taken. According to the letter, the data included name, date of birth, address, sex, and the last four digits of the Social Security number (SSN), if SSN was provided on the application. Other information could include expected income, tax filing status, family relationships, whether the applicant is a citizen or an immigrant, immigration document types and numbers, employer name, pregnancy status, health insurance status, and more. The government did say that no bank account information was stolen.

Comments

Re:ACA is 4.8x higher costs than pre-ACA

[Gavagai80]

It costs more partly because the insurance companies are required to actually deliver something now, instead of wiggle out of it as soon as you get sick (whatever your symptoms, they might be traceable to a preexisting condition you're unaware of). Congratulations on having no medical conditions. The whole point of insurance is to pay while you have no medical conditions so that your conditions will be covered if they develop later.

But if you want affordable, call your congresspeople and demand the option to buy into medicare at cost. Heck, put a 10% markup on young medicare buy-ins to help shore up the fund and it'll still be a fraction of the cost of private insurance.

Repeat after me:

[lamer01]

You DO NOT need insurance for non-life threatening conditions. Why do we need 10% or $25 co-pays and $2K-$5K deductibles to go get checked out for a runny nose? That is how we all got hoodwinked to think we need this kind of insurance. There should be plans that cover critical life threatening conditions like heart attacks/cancer. Everything else should out of pocket. You would quickly see prices drop for most services as people would actually price-shop for care for the non-life threatening ailments.