Prepare For Your Government-oscopy
The government is preparing to crawl up your ass and around all the other parts of your body, thanks to Obamacare. Rep. Tim Huelskamp brings out the old line about it in the Wash Ex, that Congress had to pass Obamacare in order to find out what's in it, but we still keep getting shocked by each new unpleasant discovery:
This time, America is learning about the federal government's plan to collect and aggregate confidential patient records for every one of us.In a proposed rule from Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the federal government is demanding insurance companies submit detailed health care information about their patients.
...The federal government does not exactly have a stellar track record when it comes to managing private information about its citizens.
Why should we trust that the federal government would somehow keep all patient records confidential? In one case, a government employee's laptop containing information about 26.5 million veterans and their spouses was stolen from the employee's home.
There's also the HHS contractor who lost a laptop containing medical information about nearly 50,000 Medicare beneficiaries. And, we cannot forget when the USDA's computer system was compromised and information and photos of 26,000 employees, contractors, and retirees potentially accessed.
The second concern is the government compulsion to seize details about private business practices. Certainly many health insurance companies defended and advocated for the president's health care law, but they likely did not know this was part of the bargain.
They are being asked to provide proprietary information to governments for purposes that will undermine their competitiveness. Obama and Sebelius made such a big deal about Americans being able to keep the coverage they have under ObamaCare; with these provisions, such private insurance may cease to exist if insurers are required to divulge their business models.
Certainly businesses have lost confidential data like the federal government has, but the power of the market can punish the private sector. A victim can fire a health insurance company; he cannot fire a bureaucrat.
How about I become President (legitimately elected), then declare a state of emergency, call in the Army, and shell HHS and EPA before they ruin our lives? That's one way of "firing" bureaucrats.
mpetrie98 at September 25, 2011 11:24 PM
About "government" and computers: at work, the PCs are obviously Federally-owned systems, and they present a dialog box warning you of dire consequences when you first power them up.
The warning is both gramatically and legally wrong.
So I asked our own senior IT guy about it. Yes, he says, it's wrong, but it can't be changed, because there's a checksum scanned to see if it's there.
Programs generated locally have the correct language (monitored system, log off if you do not accept this, etc). Apparently these were generated by persons hired based on competency, rather than some diversity program.
Radwaste at September 26, 2011 2:16 AM
Also, East on Sunset in later afternoon.
At least George HW Bush had the decency to do it all with helicopters.
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at September 26, 2011 5:01 AM
Amy Alkon
https://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2011/09/prepare-for-you.html#comment-2516744">comment from Crid [CridComment at gmail]Gregg is coming over tonight to cook me dinner and has to take evasive action. Obama stops the whole damn town when he comes to shake people down.
Amy Alkon
at September 26, 2011 5:54 AM
Here is a link to a PDF of the proposed rule from the Federal Register:
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2011-07-15/pdf/2011-17609.pdf
The comment period runs through September 28, 2011, so by all means make your voice heard if you have a concern.
The article in the Examiner does not go into much detail, but the purpose of the proposed rule is to help balance risk in the reinsurance market (that is, the people who provide insurance to insurance companies). Providing statistical and anonymized data will allow the exchanges to develop the profiles needed to balance risk and prevent adverse selection. To me this does not sound anything like the level of personal intrusiveness claimed in the article.
Factual Interjection at September 26, 2011 8:37 AM
"A victim can fire a health insurance company; he cannot fire a bureaucrat."
An argument long part of my reasons against Obamacare/nationalized healthcare.
Sio at September 26, 2011 9:13 AM
"Obama stops the whole damn town when he comes to shake people down." When he was in Austin a few months ago, traffic downtown was snarled for HOURS. It took me 45 minutes to get to happy hour less than 1/2 mile from my office-and I know the streets well enough that I can usually find a shortcut. Like he's not bad enough already...then he has to go and delay Miller Time (or maybe it was Monopolova Time that afternoon) by 40 minutes. Hmpf.
ahw at September 26, 2011 1:24 PM
I have worked in IT long enough that you can give me an anonymous data store and I can run it back to pretty much solid original data.
The only way that such data sources can really stay anonymous is by only having summary data. If you even have a first and last initial, a zip code, two health conditions that require drugs, and some other personal info such as age, you can narrow down the person fairly quickly. Any extra data points never hurt.
So if I know the originating doctors region, the person's id is based off the last 4 of the SSN, he has diabetes and a high BP and is a male 58 years old that gives me some data points. If he is local to area, I can guess the first 5 digits of his SSN. Once I have those keys I can then decrypt the rest of the data.
I'm not saying it is easy to do originally. But once you pick up the pattern, it is a very simple task.
Giving any more data makes it a cake walk. Things like these ten patients expired on these dates. Look at the obituaries in the region.
Basically if you have ever succeeded at solving cryptoquotes without using the hint(s) you can build the data back to original data.
Just remember that the government health care is going to be done by the same type of people who run the National Weather Service, the EPA, the Dept of Ed, the Social Security Administration, and the Medicare program.
Anonymous Coward at September 26, 2011 8:40 PM
Leave a comment