The spying scandal that isn't
by digby
Gee, this looks bad:
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.
Well, not exactly. It is designed to facilitate the determination of subsidy eligibility which, because the formula is so complicated, may require the input of several agencies. It has no connection to your medical file:
“On October 1, the health insurance marketplace will be open for business,” CMS administrator Tavenner said. “They can trust their information is being protected through the highest privacy standards.”
Tavenner said she wanted to emphasize two points. While the insurance exchange application does ask for personal identifying information like Social Security numbers, “it never asks for personal health information.”
Now it's true that your financial information will be available to more people than it currently is. Right now it's only available to the employees of the IRS, the company you work for, credit reporting agencies, every credit card or loan processor, your mortgage company and landlord and anyone who wants to do a background check, among others. So, yeah, it's quite the intrusion.
And as a privacy advocate, I can't say I like the fact that a whole new database is being created with my information on it. But I am confident that it's not going to be tracking what anti-depressants I'm on or the results of my colonoscopy. The huge insurance conglomerate, staffed by strangers in another state, that handles my health care policy will do that. Just as it does today. The good news is that if their records system is as inscrutable as their billing system not even Edward Snowden will be able to figure it out.
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