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If you like your health plan you can…

An entertaining story from the Guardian:

Obamacare website developers rush to fix bug suggesting hacking methods

Flaw in Affordable Care Act site records hack attempts through its search box and re-presents code as autocomplete options

22 comments to If you like your health plan you can…

  • the other rob

    As is often the case, xkcd has something appropriate.

    In other news, I have been informed that my premiums next year will be 462% of what they were this year.

  • The insecurity of the site, probably incurable in less than several months (from what I’m reading), has always struck me (ever since I first read about it a week or two back) as the absolute worst thing about ObamaCare, though I admit it’s a crowded field. The Bad News letters from insurance companies at least put a number to how much money is now going to be screwed out of you, that Obama said (about forty times) you would not be screwed out of. But all that data lying around for any tech-savvy passer-by to grab means there’s no upper limit to what you just might lose, if you have anything whatsoever to do with this horrible horrible thing.

    It took me years to trust Amazon with my bank details. Only when about half the world seemed to be signing up for that deal did I take the plunge, and I still fear that in some mysterious way, I might one day regret this. I mean, what if Amazon gets taken over by greedy incompetents, skilled only at crookedness, of the sort now already running ObamaCare (and also “advising” people about it)? I know, there are safeguards in place, but my fear is, although small, real. My fear with Obamacare would now be big, and real. My attitude to ObamaCare would be (a) I want nothing – absolutely nothing – to do with it, and (b) If the President and his gang say I have to have something to do with it, then I hope the President and his gang rot in hell.

  • llamas

    Just came back from open enrollment presentation.

    Closest choice to current medical coverage + 46%, and that is with the employer actually slightly increasing his percentage of the premium. Deductible doubles, co-pays increased by 25-50%.

    The employer made the conscious decision to end or limit certain other subsidized coverages (GTLI and LTD) in order to concentrate limited benefit dollars in the core medical benefit spend.

    Warning that it is better-than-50% likely that next year’s offerings will be limited to employees only – no spouses, no families.

    I have a co-worker with 3 pre-teen children who is actively looking for ways to find health insurance for them while he and his wife go bare. The jokes about divorcing to get affordable health insurance for the family are not so funny anymore.

    Now we hear that HHS promises that the website will be 100% functional by 11/30 are ‘softening’.

    Single payer – here we come.

    llater,

    llamas

  • a_random_guy

    It’s amateur hour! $500 million worth of amateur hour, unbelievable.

  • Or as I should have said, bit about the navigators.

    Just as well I’m not doing ObamaCare.

  • Sigivald

    Flaw in Affordable Care Act site records hack attempts through its search box and re-presents code as autocomplete options

    On the other hand, I’ve seen no evidence at all that their search function is vulnerable to SQL injection attacks – that’s the sort of amateur hour stuff I wouldn’t expect here. The ACA Website’s problems seem to be all due to the State changing requirements and not giving enough time to do things, not incompetent developers. From all I’ve heard, the development company involved is actually professional.

    And if it isn’t vulnerable to SQL injection, the fact that it shows other people’s cute little “attempts” to see if it does is completely meaningless.

  • Jaded Voluntaryist

    Lol @ The Guardian:

    Up until a few hours ago one of the stories this one linked to was this:

    Nancy Pelosi says website problems will be fixed and ‘Democrats stand tall in support of the Affordable Care Act’. 3 days ago

    They’ve removed it 🙂 They lasted 2 whole days before the system exploded again…..

  • bgates

    From all I’ve heard, the development company involved is actually professional.

    The development company, CGI, was involved in a failed attempt to make a Canadian gun registry which went far over budget, screwed up the records, and was hacked hundreds of times. Michelle Obama’s college roommate is a VP at CGI.

    What have you heard?

  • craig hamilton

    The good thing about Obamacare is that it proves how efficient and effective central planning is. The bad thing about Obama is that he doesn’t play more golf.

  • Laird

    bgates, I had previously heard that a VP at CGI was a college classmate of Michelle’s, which frankly didn’t mean much to me (Princeton is a big place). But I hadn’t previously seen that she was Michelle’s roommate, which I find much more significant. Especially since this was a no-bid contract.

    This has to be the most blatantly corrupt administration in the nation’s history.

  • M. Thompson

    Laird: it’s the easiest reason to not trust these folks: Chicago Democrats.

    Every bad thing you’ve ever heard about municipal politics is more or less true. The dead still vote, and the gangs work hand in hand with the Aldermen.

  • Nick (nice-guy) Gray

    Finish this sentence- If you like your health plan you can-
    -Hide it safely where the sun don’t shine?
    -always change your mind?
    -come to its’ funeral? and have a good wake afterwards?

  • Roue le Jour

    I find it interesting that the govt. likes to refer to the “web site”. Healthcare.gov isn’t really a web site, any more than Amazon is a web site. It’s a huge system with a web interface. To say that the “web site” has problems is to deliberately cultivate the idea that the system works just fine, it’s just that pesky “web site” that has problems. Total nonsense.

  • Dom

    I think what Obama meant was: if I like your plan you can keep it.

  • George Atkisson

    In addition to Michelle Obama’s room mate being an executive, Valerie Jarrett’s (ever heard that name before?) daughter and husband work for CGI as well.

    It’s Chicago on the Potomac. No one cares about your skills or history, it’s “Who Sent You?” that gets you the job.

  • Jordan

    As no one else has yet…

    It was the first comment…

  • veryretired

    Next November can’t come soon enough.

    Having said that, my guess is this next election cycle leading up to the mid-terms in ’14, and then the broader elections in ’16, will be the dirtiest, most corrupt, and most vicious since the 19th century.

    Should be loads of fun.

  • Bod

    Healthcare.gov was merely the visible manifestation of the iceberg that we all knew was there.

    The ship of state sailed on, the crew oblivious.

  • Julie near Chicago

    No, Dom, what It meant was,

    “If you like your health plan you can shove it up your bum.” Only not “bum.”

  • stef

    “Single payer”? A monopoly.

    Always amazing that people can only see problems with government setting monopolies/near-to-its up when they are upset with those on the helped out side of the bargains made with govt. In those cases they hate the Evil Big Company/Evil Big Industry and blindly ignore the corruption and manipulation and protection-buying that is feeding the situation, coming from the Impossibly Evil + Big Govt. For some reason those against “private” monopolies and corporate “capitalism” really really want those things merged into full-on Govt monopolies with complete control which are somehow going to be magically better by doing everything they hate in a grander fashion.