Think the NSA snoops? How about Obamacare's data hub?
The notion that thousands of low level bureaucrats are going to have access to the most private and intimate information about your life should worry you.
And that's what's going to happen when you buy an insurance policy under Obamacare.
As the Obamacare train-wreck begins to gather steam, there is increasing concern in Congress over something called the Federal Data Services Hub. The Data Hub is a comprehensive database of personal information being established by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to implement the federally facilitated health insurance exchanges. The purpose of the Data Hub, according to a June 2013 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report, is to provide "electronic, near real-time access to federal data" and "access to state and third party data sources needed to verify consumer-eligibility information." In these days of secret domestic surveillance by the intelligence community, rogue IRS officials and state tax agencies using private information for political purposes, and police electronically logging every license plate that passes by, the idea of the centralized Data Hub is making lawmakers and citizens nervous.
They certainly should be; the potential for abuse is enormous. The massive, centralized database will include comprehensive personal information such as income and financial data, family size, citizenship and immigration status, incarceration status, social security numbers, and private health information. It will compile dossiers based on information obtained from the IRS, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Defense, the Veterans Administration, the Office of Personnel Management, the Social Security Administration, state Medicaid databases, and for some reason the Peace Corps. The Data Hub will provide web-based, one-stop shopping for prying into people's personal affairs.
Not to fear, HHS says, the Data Hub will be completely secure. Really? Secure like all the information that has been made public in the Wikileaks era? These days no government agency can realistically claim that private information will be kept private, especially when it is being made so accessible. Putting everyone's personal information in once place only simplifies the challenge for those looking to hack into the system.
Hackers will be the least of our worries. So-called "navigators" who will be assisting people in signing up for the exchanges will have access to our personal information. So we have that to look forward to.
There is talk in Congress of trying to make our information more secure but it's not going to happen. Government needs that info in order to determine what kind of subsidy millions of people are going to get. The fact that so many will have access to it is just one more little goody contained in the Affordable Care Act.
As the Obamacare train-wreck begins to gather steam, there is increasing concern in Congress over something called the Federal Data Services Hub. The Data Hub is a comprehensive database of personal information being established by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to implement the federally facilitated health insurance exchanges. The purpose of the Data Hub, according to a June 2013 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report, is to provide "electronic, near real-time access to federal data" and "access to state and third party data sources needed to verify consumer-eligibility information." In these days of secret domestic surveillance by the intelligence community, rogue IRS officials and state tax agencies using private information for political purposes, and police electronically logging every license plate that passes by, the idea of the centralized Data Hub is making lawmakers and citizens nervous.
They certainly should be; the potential for abuse is enormous. The massive, centralized database will include comprehensive personal information such as income and financial data, family size, citizenship and immigration status, incarceration status, social security numbers, and private health information. It will compile dossiers based on information obtained from the IRS, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Defense, the Veterans Administration, the Office of Personnel Management, the Social Security Administration, state Medicaid databases, and for some reason the Peace Corps. The Data Hub will provide web-based, one-stop shopping for prying into people's personal affairs.
Not to fear, HHS says, the Data Hub will be completely secure. Really? Secure like all the information that has been made public in the Wikileaks era? These days no government agency can realistically claim that private information will be kept private, especially when it is being made so accessible. Putting everyone's personal information in once place only simplifies the challenge for those looking to hack into the system.
- See more at: http://rare.us/story/move-over-nsa-here-comes-the-obamacare-big-brother-database/#sthash.P5Ia5xe5.dpuf