Heh!: “Due to the absence of either an FY 2014 appropriation or Continuing Resolution for the Department of Health and Human Services, there is no one to process your action or respond to your message. If you require immediate attention, please contact 410-786-4160”
See below for the inside joke
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Quick note: It seems that the Obamacare Exchange being run by the State of Maryland has some really “cute” slugs on the “privacy” that Marylanders think they might have. Now, if you KNEW this and had any doubts of your, er, past, do you think this might give you reason to pause?
“[W]e may share information provided in your application with the appropriate authorities for law enforcement and audit activities.”
And if you are going “phew, only the cops? Nobody else?” – Hah!
“your correspondence could be disclosed to other parties upon their request in accordance with Maryland’s Public Information Act.”
Cool! Maryland’s law, that Public Info doo-hicky, will keep my info from the badness that is Big Biz, right? To which my retort would be: when’s the last time you actually sat down and READ that PIC?
Better yet, before handing over your name, your address, your birthday, your social security number, number of people in your household, your income, your “household income” (from little Jimmy to Granny), all of the social security numbers of everyone living in your household, citizenship/immigration status; did you READ the Privacy on whatever Exchange you were using?
Like you have much choice, right? With 16,000 new IRS agents, that will make the brownshirts of the National Park Service look like daycare workers, ready to audit every paycheck, every raise, every move, or any “major life change”, do you have the choice to opt-out of any of this?
‘Course not – Progressives truly believe in “everyone all in”. They mean it – everyone WILL be all in (like it or not).
(H/T: Hot Air)
So what does the Federal Healthcare.gov site says about its Privacy?
- It collects your Internet info (your domain / ISP, IP address, OS, browser, when, what you looked at, how you go to Healthcare.gov)
- The HealthCare.gov staff analyzes and reports on the collected data from these tools. The reports are available only to HealthCare.gov managers, members of the HealthCare.gov communications and Web teams, and other designated staff who need this information to perform their duties.
Really? Sounds just like the Illinois databases that were accessed once Joe The Plumber confronted then candidate Obama about “spreading the wealth around”. That worked out so well for Joe, didn’t? Boy, fingers tapped their keyboards back then – all unauthorized.
- Cookies (and not the Keebler Elves kind)! BUT! You can opt out by turning them off in your browser (or so they say – is the NSA doing a piggyback here)?
This is kinda silly right on its face:
- If HealthCare.gov operates a record system designed to retrieve information about you in order to accomplish its mission…
IF? Er, isn’t that the WHOLE REASON for its existence? Snots….I have requested the ENTIRE Privacy policy. I really don’t want to have to use the system for them to see what’s in me.
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Sidenote: “Due to the absence of either an FY 2014 appropriation or Continuing Resolution for the Department of Health and Human Services, there is no one to process your action or respond to your message. If you require immediate attention, please contact 410-786-4160″.
That was the answer to my email. Typical government work – here is something that people HAVE to use, that the Obama Admin has touted for MONTHS that this app would be unicorns and fairy dust, and is taking a shellacking now that it doesn’t work. Ya have to laugh – they must have HUNDREDS of programmers working on this, lots of project managers sweating bullets, administrators going ‘well, this means my job” (don’t worry deary, if they didn’t fire Lois Lerner, they won’t fire you) and millions of end users (er, what we in the private sector would call Cash Paying Customers!) trying to figure this out, millions spent to pay for this national disaster…
….and they have the stones to say no one is available due to the Shutdown?????
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- HealthCare.gov will keep data collected long enough to achieve the specified objective for which they were collected.
Well that’s reassuring – “long enough”. Go ahed, look here and YOU tell me if there is one shred of evidence that there is an end point for the kind of info this system is keeping. I’m betting few of you will. I WILL take the bet that less than 1% of LIVs would bother.
- If you use Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or any of the myriad social media sites (including blogsites) – yup, Healthcare.gov is gonna hoover you up. Sometimes by accident, and do you wanna bet on “not on purpose”?
This next one is, well, off-putting:
- While providing the requested information (including social security numbers) is voluntary, failing to provide it may delay or prevent your ability to obtain health coverage through the Marketplace, advanced payment of the premium tax credits, cost sharing reductions, or an exemption from the shared responsibility payment.
Translation – don’t give us what is voluntary info, you might not get covered (and I remind you of those 16,000 new IRS agents). If that isn’t a club to the head…this would be – other folks that get to “ride along”:
- Internal Revenue Service, Social Security Administration and Department of Homeland Security, Social Security Administration, Dept of Veterans Affairs, Medicare, Peace Corps, TriCare (DoD), HHS, OPM, (plus other Feds), Medicaid, CHIP) or local government agencies, consumer reporting agencies, credit agencies, employers, insurance agents and brokers, contractors playing inside the Exchange, Insurance Companies, and “Anyone else as required by law or allowed under the Privacy Act System of Records Notice”
Go ahead, guess how many people that encompasses?
Bonus: at the bottom of the Privacy “how we use your data” was the obligatory help type question: did this help? Just for grins, I said no. Hilarity & face palm result:
Hilarity in that there were no questions. I ANSWERED the question (“No”). Why should I review my answer to the one and only question?
Face Palm – yeah, we’re paying for this shoddy (I had another word in mind that started with “sh” that means the same thing).
