HealthCare.gov could possibly be one of the most infamously terrible websites in the history of the Internet.
After years of empty hype, the operators of the site can barely even keep it running, and people all over the country have been complaining about various errors since it went live on October 1, 2013.
It is uncertain why the site has been riddled with so many problems, although it is likely that the developers saw the project as a gravy train, and an opportunity to feed at the trough of “free government money.” It’s typical for government projects to see this fate, as public sector contracts are almost always overpaid and under-worked. The HealthCare.gov website certainly falls into this mold, costing an estimated $2.1 billion so far, according to a Bloomberg Government analysis of contracts related to the project.
How the hell does a health care website cost $2 billion? That’s more than the GDP of Belize!
These statistics must be horribly embarrassing for the government and its contractors, considering that countless private sector websites in the same field operate far more smoothly at a fraction of the cost.
Now the HealthCare.gov website is back in the news again this week, after the Associated Press reported that the website was secretly sending users’ personal data to to third party advertising companies.
It’s unclear what type of data or information the website is sharing, but it could be anything from a person’s name, birthday, income, and ZIP code, to whether or not they smoke, what their IP address is, and possibly even their personal home address.
The Consumer Experience
While it seems obvious there’s a strong financial motive here, the Obama administration has said that the website’s connections to advertising firms were intended to “help improve the consumer experience.”
Some politicians have even spoke up about the recent news, calling on the Obama administration to explain itself.
Senators Orrin Hatch, and Charles Grassley wrote a letter to the White House this week, calling the data mining operation a breach of privacy.
“This new information is extremely concerning, not only because it violates the privacy of millions of Americans, but because it may potentially compromise their security,” the note read.
However, the administration has said that the third party sites aren’t allowed to do anything shady with the information.
Hmmm, the government guaranteeing that nothing shady is going on. Sounds good to me!
Forget that fact that sharing and selling this information without explicit approval from the users is shady to begin with.
In a recent statement, Obama administration spokesman Aaron Albright said that the third party companies involved “are prohibited from using information from these tools on HealthCare.gov for their companies’ purposes. The government uses them to measure the performance of HealthCare.gov so consumers get a simpler, more streamlined and intuitive experience.”
However, some experts, even in Washington have pointed out that there must be something more going on.
Promises, Promises
Theresa Payton, a former White House chief information officer told the Associated Press that, “You don’t need all of that data to do customer service, we know hackers are just waiting at the door, salivating to get at this data.”
The major issue at hand here is that the users never agreed to this breach of privacy. Even in the many pages of user agreements, there is no mention of the website collecting data. In fact, the site’s privacy policy clearly states that information WILL NOT be collected and distributed to third party sites.
However, tech experts revealed to the Associated Press that a simple test of the network showed up to 50 third-party connections embedded on HealthCare.gov.
Cooper Quintin, with the Electronic Frontier Foundation said that this arrangement could destroy medical confidentiality.
“I think that this could erode … confidentiality when dealing with medical data and medical information,” Quintin wrote in a recent column.
Ironically, this news comes just as Obama was making promises about protecting personal data and individual privacy online.
“If we’re going to be connected, then we need to be protected. As Americans, we shouldn’t have to forfeit our basic privacy when we go online to do our business,” Obama said in a speech this week, around the same time the news about HealthCare.gov went public.
However, just days prior when speaking about encryption, Obama said that there should be no form of communication that the government is not able to intercept.
I couldn’t make this stuff up if I tried!
When faced with such controversy, an average business would likely succumb to market demand and change its policies, but it seems that the government is not intending to make any changes to improve its services, as usual. This is largely because the government knows that people will be forced to sign up for its services anyway, so government officials aren’t really concerned about developing a meaningful relationship with their “customers.”
In the case of Obamacare, the deadline for enrollment is February 15th, 2015. If you do not enroll, or find an inflated health package of your choosing, you will be fined. If you know of any company that can legally enforce a fine for not buying its product, please let me know. Until then, Obamacare remains to be little more than another violent government action, and now with the bonus of using your personal and private as another source of revenue. Good luck getting your cut!
