Exclusive: HealthCare.gov Users Warn of Security Risk, Breach of Privacy

[bsteadman]

Exclusive: HealthCare.gov Users Warn of Security Risk, Breach of Privacy

The Foundry, The Heritage Foundation
Kelsey Harris and Rob Bluey
11/2/2013

Excerpt:

Justin Hadley logged on to HealthCare.gov to evaluate his insurance options after his health plan was canceled. What he discovered was an apparent security flaw that disclosed eligibility letters addressed to individuals from another state.

“I was in complete shock,” said Hadley, who contacted Heritage after becoming alarmed at the breach of privacy.

Hadley, a North Carolina father, buys his insurance on the individual market. His insurance company, Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina, directed him to HealthCare.gov in a cancellation letter he received in September.

After multiple attempts to access the problem-plagued website, Hadley finally made it past the registration page Thursday. That’s when he was greeted with downloadable letters about eligibility — for two people in South Carolina. (Screenshot ....)

The letters, dated October 8, acknowledge receipt of an application to the Health Insurance Marketplace and the eligibility of family members to purchase health coverage. One of the letters was addressed to Thomas Dougall, a lawyer from Elgin, SC.

Hadley shared a screenshot and copy of the letter with redacted personal information.

Hadley wrote to Heritage on Thursday night and also contacted the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which administers HealthCare.gov, as well as elected officials in his state. He has yet to hear back from HHS, even though HealthCare.gov still displays the personal information of the South Carolina residents on his account.

Hadley reached out to Dougall on Friday to notify him of the breach. Dougall, who spoke to Heritage this evening, said he was evaluating health care options in early October. Dougall said he was able to register on HealthCare.gov, but decided not to sign up for insurance.

“The plans they offered were grossly expensive and didn’t provide the level of care I have now,” he said.

Dougall said he never saw the October 8 letter until Hadley sent it to him Friday.

After learning of the privacy breach, Dougall spent Friday evening trying to contact representatives from HealthCare.gov to no avail; he spent an hour waiting on the telephone and an online chat session was unhelpful. He also wrote to Senators Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Tim Scott (R-SC), along with Representative Joe Wilson (R-SC).

“I want my personal information off of that website,” Dougall said.

Security Risk

Last week, the Associated Press disclosed a government memo revealing the “high” security risk for HealthCare.gov. Those concerns surfaced at Wednesday’s hearing with HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, who claimed the system was secure.

HHS spokeswoman Joanne Peters told the AP, “When consumers fill out their online … applications, they can trust that the information they’re providing is protected by stringent security standards and that the technology underlying the application process has been tested and is secure.”

However, that didn’t stop members of Congress from voicing alarm.

“You accepted a risk on behalf of every user … that put their personal financial information at risk,” Representative Mike Rogers (R-MI) told Sebelius. “Amazon would never do this. ProFlowers would never do this. Kayak would never do this. This is completely an unacceptable level of security.”

Heritage cyber-security expert Steven Bucci, director of the Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies, said users of HealthCare.gov are leaving their personal information unsecured.

“Once it goes out over the system, it is vulnerable,” Bucci said. “There appears to have been a singular lack of concern for security. The site needs to receive and transmit sensitive personal information, yet it has less than state of the art security.”
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View the complete article at:

http://blog.heritage.org/2013/11/02/...ch-of-privacy/

[bsteadman]

Virginia Democrat Calls For Forcing Doctors To Accept Medicare And Medicaid Patients

Mason Conservative
Chris Beer
11/2/2013

Excerpt:

You would think that when your party is burying a hole that is getting harder and harder to get out of, you wouldn't want to that hole get deeper faster. But here is Kathleen Murphy, Democrat running for the House of Delegates against Barbara Comstock, telling a forum in Great Falls that she believes it should law to force doctors to accept Medicare and Medicaid patients. Forced by government decree, mind you. A birdie sent me this:

FYI last night at the Great Falls Grange debate, Democrat delegate candidate Kathleen Murphy said that since many doctors are not accepting medicaid and medicare patients, she advocates making it a legal requirement for those people to be accepted.

She did not recognize that the payments are inadequate to cover the doctors' costs. She also did not recognize there is a shortage of over 45,000 physicians now and that it is forecast to be 90,000 in a few years.

Democrats appear to want to make physicians slaves of the state, but Democrats don't admit they would just drive more doctors out of practice into retirement and other occupations. The Obamacare law and regulations are causing millions of people to lose their health insurance, drop many doctors and hospitals. The HHS internal forecast is 93 million Americans would lose their health insurance due to the Obamacare law and rules about adequacy of insurance.

Many more people will be uninsured. The penalties for being uninsured start at $95 per year, but the penalties can't be collected by the IRS if a person does not have a tax refund to attach.

The out of pocket costs required by Obamacare's Silver Plan for a non-smoking mother and father with two children making a gross before income taxes of $50,000 (roughly average salary for VA) would be $13,765 per year including the deductible of $10,400. That's 28% of their gross income -- not very affordable and about the same as guidelines for a mortgage payment. For such a family making $100,000 of gross income, The cost would be $21,431 including the deductible of $12,700, or 21% of gross income.

With such high deductibles doctors are stuck with trying to collect cash from the patients, even at regulated charge structures. Thus is makes sense for primary care doctors not to participate in Obamacare, medicare and medicaid. They should encourage patients to participate in Concierge Care and insurance programs run by the doctors themselves with patients who can do simple math. Patients can take out catastrophic insurance with high deductibles for major surgeries. Tax deductability for individual medical savings accounts would make health care more affordable.

The head of Obamacare programs, Berwick, loves the socialized medical system in the UK, but never mentions that malpractice insurance is minimal. In the UK, panels of doctors review and approve malpractice awards, rather than emotional juries misled by trial lawyers. Malpractice reform like this with caps on malpractice awards would go a long way in making health care affordable.

I hope physicians rise up and speak out for common sense, protecting quality medical care in the US and giving patients freedom to choose

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View the complete article at:

http://masonconservative.typepad.com...-patients.html

[bsteadman]

Four Legal Arguments Why ObamaCare is Bad Law & Ought be Overturned

Canada Free Press
Kelly OConnell
11/3/2013

Excerpt:

When it became obvious on the day of ObamaCare’s premier that the Internet websites did not work, some were wildly disappointed, others angry, while another group heaved a sigh of relief. The fact that the legislation may not be fully available for months, or years, gives Americans a unique opportunity to review and potentially revoke this law. So we now have a chance at congress’ equivalent of a mulligan—a do over to right any obvious wrongs. So what would such bad elements be?

Following is a list of four possible arguments to fight the case at court, in the legislature or in the court of public opinion. The notion that the people must accept all laws no matter how they were passed, or how injurious to the populace, or damaging to the economy, no matter the morality— is a patent fiction. No bad law should be allowed to stand on the fact that it is the result of a technicality, accident or bad deed, which lead to its imposture, and therefore, we must just learn to live with it. In fact, our Common Law heritage always taught that an unjust law is no law at all. Further, it also taught that citizens had a duty to defy unjust laws in the name of upholding liberty.

This is America, the most generous, noble and free society in the history of the world. We have a right and a duty to demand the best government and laws. This will allow us freedom to be the leaders of the world, not slaves under the yoke of an all-powerful, rapacious and blind government.

1. Unpopular: It Violates Declaration’s Government by “Consent of the People”

The introduction to the Constitution is the Declaration of Independence. One of the chief innovations of the American government is called Popular Sovereignty, or that all power rests in The People. This idea, which had long percolated in religious circles of medieval Europe, claimed that the locus of power was found in The People, as provided by God. The People used the power vested in them to loan to the leaders, who were clothed in power as long as they fairly represented the will of The People. If they stopped representing The People, they lost their status as leaders and became despots.

The ancient Romans said, Vox Populi, Vox Dei—the Voice of the People is the Voice of God. Catholic Church scholarship by way of the ascension of Gregory I, and later the Protestant Reformation both helped formalize the idea that God favored the will of the ecclesia, the body of Believers. Further, the Presbyterian theory of one-man, one-vote gave a way for the will of The People to be measured when transferred into a secular setting. All this was set upon the covenant theory which took the covenant between man and God and added government, as occurred in America’s earliest colonies. The American Constitution is set upon the covenant model, which John Locke helped adapt from church to state. Here the Declaration reads,

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,—That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

The WA Post reported a fascinating story which reveals how much Obama leads by division. His Stimulus Bill and ObamaCare are the two most unpopular bills in US history, as measured by the difference between Democrat and Republican support, by a rate by party of over 90%. For example, zero Republicans voted for the healthcare law when it passed.

ObamaCare has never been favored by the will of the majority. About 70% of voters favor returning healthcare laws back to 2009 laws. Generally, over 60% of Americans have always opposed the draconian healthcare law. But new polling shows that nearly 60% of Democrat voters oppose the bill.

So according to the Founders and their Declaration and Constitution, since ObamaCare has never been the will of the People, it should be considered illegal and repealed immediately. Or, the government itself should be replaced if this is not followed, according to President Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence.

2. Sold by Lies: An Utterly Misleading Campaign for a Passed Law is Illegal

Law in a constitutional democratic republic must be made in the open, with clear and honest explanations describing what will be voted upon and what the effects of the law will be. If not, we have leadership and law by duplicity, which can produce neither true leadership nor genuine law.

Let us state the obvious—a law which is knowingly promoted by lies as to the contents or its effects, is not the law which was voted upon. It is a hoax. Therefore, one could argue that such a law was never passed since the advertised law never existed. Liability for this can be levied upon the politicians who pass off such false information. In fact, South Dakota has such a law on its books in South Dakota Codified Laws 12-13-16:

Publication of false or erroneous information on constitutional amendment or submitted question as misdemeanor. Any person knowingly printing, publishing, or delivering to any voter of this state a document containing any purported constitutional amendment, question, law, or measure to be submitted to the voters at any election, in which such constitutional amendment, question, law, or measure is misstated, erroneously printed, or by which false or misleading information is given to the voters, is guilty of a Class 2 misdemeanor.

Again, the law of Washington State makes illegal lying to public servants, which could be applied to Washington DC and Barack misleading our elected representatives. Here is Washington State’s RCW 9A.76.175: Making a false or misleading statement to a public servant:

A person who knowingly makes a false or misleading material statement to a public servant is guilty of a gross misdemeanor. “Material statement” means a written or oral statement reasonably likely to be relied upon by a public servant in the discharge of his or her official powers or duties.

We prohibit false advertising in sales: 15 USC § 78r - Liability for misleading statements. But is the selling of legislation on outright, known falsehoods supposed to be less of a danger to the Republic? We ought to prosecute the selling of laws by way of misleading statements or outright lies. Here are five lies, already outrageously uncovered, that Obama and his proxies offered up for support of ObamaCare, from Townhall:

A. Healthcare Costs Will Decrease Under ObamaCare
B. Under ObamaCare You Can Keep Your Physician
C. You Can Keep Your Healthcare Plan Under ObamaCare
D. ObamaCare Will Not Increase the Deficit
E. Jobs Will be Created by ObamaCare

Common sense and the American way of doing government both insist that such laws, outrageously sold to citizens by patent lies, can be rejected because of this brazen dishonesty. To disagree with this position simply means the critic does not even have a basic understanding of the word “law.”

3. Doctrine of Impossibility: Agreements Impossible to Fulfill are Null & Void

Under Contract Law, an impossible to fulfill agreement is unenforceable, for eminently logical reasons. For example, the Uniform Commercial Code, the world’s greatest mercantile rule book, defines Impossibility here:

Where contracts for the sale of goods are concerned UCC 2-615 sets forth three conditions which must be satisfied before performance is excused: (1) a contingency has occurred; (2) the contingency has made performance impracticable; and (3) the nonoccurrence of that contingency was a basic assumption upon which the contract was made.

Likewise, a law which cannot be fulfilled ought to be repealed. The basic argument would be that the catastrophic failure of the ObamaCare websites represents an impossible to surmount technical problem. But even if we fix these sites, it would take so long, and without a stopgap for all the persons already booted off their insurance plans, that to leave nothing in its place would be to visit avoidable disaster upon millions of innocent Americans.

But the government should at least cancel three important aspects of this draconian law. First, all insurance plans should be made able to grandfather into ObamaCare. Second, ObamaCare should be made wholly voluntary. Third, the punishment phase should be made lex imperfecta, or without any penalty.
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View the complete article at:

http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/58992

[bsteadman]

Obama donor’s firm hired to fix Web mess it created

The New York Post
S.A. Miller
11/1/2013

Excerpt:

WASHINGTON — A tech firm linked to a campaign-donor crony of President Obama not only got the job to help build the federal health-insurance Web site — but also is getting paid to fix it.

Anthony Welters, a top campaign bundler for Obama and frequent White House guest, is the executive vice president of UnitedHealth Group, which owns the software company now at the center of the ObamaCare Web-site fiasco.

UnitedHealth Group subsidiary Quality Software Services Inc. (QSSI), which built the data hub for the ObamaCare system, has been named the new general contractor in charge of repairing the glitch-plagued HealthCare.gov.

Welters and his wife, Beatrice, have shoveled piles of cash into Obama’s campaign coffers and apparently reaped the rewards.

Beatrice Welters bundled donations totaling between $200,000 and $500,000 for Obama’s campaign during the 2008 election cycle, according to campaign- finance data compiled by Center for Responsive Politics.

SICK CALL: Obama bundler Anthony Welters’ firm owns the company picked to repair the health Web site.

The couple then became top donors for Obama’s inauguration festivities, kicking in $100,000 out of their own pockets and bundling another $300,000 from friends and business associates, according to the center.

The investments quickly paid off for Beatrice Welters. The Obama administration tapped her in 2009 for the plum job of US ambassador to Trinidad and Tobago, which she held through last November.

The couple have been frequent guests at the White House.

Visitors logs show at least a dozen visits between the two by the end of 2012, the most recent information available.

The entire Welters family has gotten into the donation game.

The Welters, along with their sons, Andrew and Bryant, have contributed more than $258,000 to mostly Democratic candidates and committees since 2007.

What’s more, UnitedHealth Group is one of the largest health-insurance companies in the country and spent millions lobbying for ObamaCare.

The insurance giant’s purchase of QSSI in 2012 raised eyebrows on Capitol Hill, but the tech firm nevertheless kept the job of building the data hub for the ObamaCare Web site where consumers buy the new mandatory health- insurance plans.

QSSI has been paid an estimated $150 million so far, but officials couldn’t say how much more the company might collect on the repair contract.

By all accounts, the data hub has run smoothly while many other components of the Web site have failed.

Meanwhile, tempers flared among Obama’s Democratic allies over the disastrous rollout of the president’s signature initiative.

“I’m extraordinarily frustrated,” said Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) after top Obama-administration officials gave Senate Democrats a private briefing on the state of the Web-site repairs.

He said they were losing confidence the site could be quickly fixed.
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View the complete article at:

http://nypost.com/2013/11/01/obama-d...t-helped-make/

[bsteadman]

Security Threat: Americans Identity Exposed Via Obamacare Website

Birther Report
11/4/2013

Excerpt:

Security Threat: Americans Identity Exposed Via Obamacare Website; Team Obama Knew For Years...

Internet Security expert explains why it would be foolish to input personal information at the Obamacare website...

AUDIO ...:
( Audio via Sean Hannity. Hat tip Mara Zebest. )

View the complete Birther Report presentation at:

http://www.birtherreport.com/2013/11...ity-theft.html