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<p>And that’s because they are so very careful with your personal information. Let’s just forget that Anthem was fined for mailing out letters with SSNumbers visible through the envelope and that the Blues routinely send out our personal information to third party vendors with no protections in place. </p>
<p>No excuse for the mess that the ACA website is in but let’s not pretend our information is a lot safer everywhere else.</p>
<p>Well, even a cursory risk analysis would tell me to take my chances with the insurance companies over the healthcare.gov site right now. Maybe they’ll get it fixed and it will be better but right now, I would prefer to go to the insurance companies directly.</p>
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<p>If Oct 1 was never a plausible date, why didn’t they take the high road and agree with the republicans to postpone the roll out by a few months? We would have avoided the shut down and the dems would have looked conciliatory.</p>
<p>[Is</a> Obamacare Driving Doctors to Refuse Insurance? - Yahoo Finance](<a href=“http://finance.yahoo.com/news/obamacare-driving-doctors-refuse-insurance-132541502.html]Is”>http://finance.yahoo.com/news/obamacare-driving-doctors-refuse-insurance-132541502.html)</p>
<p>“Dr. Qamar is part of a new and growing generation of concierge doctors who, in this era of health reform, see more opportunity in the middle class than they do in the jet set. The trend has bifurcated the retainer medicine industry: On one end, patients pay thousands of dollars a month for lavish celebrity-type treatment at traditional concierge practices. On the other, pared-down clinics charge roughly $50 to $100 a month for basic primary-care medicine, more accessible doctors, and yes, money savings for those looking to reduce their health spending.”</p>
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<p>So much wisdom in so few words!</p>
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<p>And when that happens consumers can sue and have done so. Can’t sue the gobernment…</p>
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<p>I have no inside information on this architecture, but you do security testing against production code. If you are still changing things it isnt production, which means they arent able to sign off on security. </p>
<p>You also have to factor in that they are rushing to meet another arbitrary date <em>and</em> they are having performance issues, both of which are very bad signs for security. When you have bottlenecked, unreliable code people’s reaction is to streamline functions of the architecture (that may have been there for a good reason) to get the system back on-line and out of crit sit. Hence poorly tested or insecure code gets rushed into production with the intention of fixing it “when the secure version is available” but then your resources are tied up on other fires. </p>
<p>I dont like the indicators, so if I was sure that I wasnt getting a subsidy I wouldnt enter info into healthcare.gov at this point.</p>
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<p>Cyber security is my bread and butter. Cyber security is so much more than penetration testing or static code analysis. In order to do it right, you have to think about cyber security through out the entire project lifecycle.</p>
<p>If they did not think about security in the early stages of the project, it might be very hard to fix some issues now. While many common weaknesses can be addressed with secure code practices, others may require redesign and/or re-architecture of the system.</p>
<p>I’ve heard the same story on the radio and it is really scary. Personally, if people are not eligible for subsidies, I would urge them to buy exchange insurance policies directly from insurance companies.</p>
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<p>Brings back memories of BCBS using our SSNs as account ids. Not only extremely vulnerable to identity theft threat, but also bad from a design point of view.</p>
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<p>I don’t think it matters how people sign up. As long as enough (healthy) people sign up for exchange plans, the math would work. It does not matter to insurance companies where the premiums come from - individual or taxpayer’s pockets.</p>
<p>So… As far as security goes, the Nov 30 deadline is impossible to meet?</p>
<p>A lot of those healthy people are young. They would qualify for subsidies. They can’t afford the insurance otherwise. They won’t sign up without them.</p>
<p>I think we should discuss security issues probably in December if and when they declare the site is ready and if people start seeing issues. Based on the posts on this page, everyone is pretty much speculating about what is currently there or not there. The discussion gets political now if we want to keep talking about it and does not help anyone. </p>
<p>I have heard coverCA is most successful enrolling people so far but they are not telling anyone how many enrolled. No one has mentioned any security questions about that site either. </p>
<p>Frugaldoctor mentioned calling up an agent and enrolling in 15 minutes about 3-4 weeks ago on this thread and we have discussed that it is the best choice for people not needing any subsidy since it takes no time. It sounds like the money goes to the same pool as the Govt websites.</p>
<p>A lot of these young people won’t have patience for a site that doesn’t work. Remember, they’ve lived their entire life with the internet at the tip of their fingers. Low tolerance for non-working sites. If they want this thing to work, they have to get the site working.</p>
<p>As to security, there’s no way to know but as I said, that’s not my expertise. I just know the basics. Enough to listen and somewhat understand the experts. 
I tell you, the amount of work they must do to make an outfacing site like this secure boggles the mind.</p>
<p>I’m likely going with an agent to help me find my policy. I never did that before but I have some specialized needs. To me, it will be worth the extra I end up having to pay for the agent.</p>
<p>The guy who runs covered ca says a person can sign up in 20 minutes.</p>
<p>Texaspg, I gave you a bad time awhile back. You are doing a great job. I hope that is ok to
say. :)</p>
<p>I am going to see my niece in Nov 28th. She works in the cyber security field.</p>
<p>We had no problem signing up. But, we signed up through BCBS, not through dotgov.</p>
<p>Good luck to those having to go through dotgov.</p>
<p>I can’t believe they had no plan B. I mean, who doesn’t have a plan B?</p>
<p>Romani, re:
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<p>^ Because you have to earn 138% of the FPL in order to be eligible for the exchange subsidies. You’d be “safe” estimating at $17k.</p>
<p>Otherwise, you will NOT receive subsidy – you would have to wait and use Medicare when it expands in March. I’d asked about this re: my part-time working son, who is now full time (so it’s moot.) That was what the BCBS agent explained – to estimate his wage at FT for 2014 for exchange eligibility.</p>
<p>Re: security…we’re not exactly cybersecurity experts around here though we are developers and do manage our own servers and ergo have the pleasure of routinely fighting hacks. But you don’t need to be a cybersecurity expert to know that healthcare.gov really didn’t even implement the kind of standard PII that a tiny bank might use ;)</p>
<p>Eg:</p>
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<p>Honestly, I am pretty certain it was the latter.</p>
<p>It concerns me a great deal, because I believe that the ultimate intended goals of ACA have the potential to (eventually) improve healthcare access and control/mitigate health spending and ergo improve global competitiveness. But first, it’s gotta WORK ;)</p>
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<p>No, it’s between 100% and 400%. Yes, it’s up to 138% for Medicaid (well, not for Michiganders, but ya know…). </p>
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[quote]
People purchasing coverage on their own will be eligible for government subsidies (through a tax credit) towards their health insurance premiums based on income. Subsidies will be provided to people with family income between 100% and 400% of the federal poverty level.<a href=“%5Burl=http://kff.org/interactive/subsidy-calculator/]Subsidy%20Calculator%20|%20The%20Henry%20J.%20Kaiser%20Family%20Foundation[/url]”>/quote</a></p>
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<p>I don’t think this is correct. Tax credits are available to people with incomes between 100% and 400% of poverty level. Plugging in an income of $12,000 into the Subsidy Calculator on the Kaiser site will estimate a subsidy of $2154 per year for a 27 year old.</p>
<p>I think there’s a crossover, in the Medicaid expansion states. People down to 100% of FPL can get subsidies. People up to 133% of FPL can be on Medicaid. I think.</p>
<p>Well, I just got off the phone with a bonafide BCBS agent who double checked for me and who confirms that the Silver Premium PPO plan can NOT be purchased with SUBSIDY unless my son’s earnings are estimated at 138% of FPL.</p>
<p>In the legislation, the first tier is 100% to 150% - wherein the deductible and OOP is split (reduced by) 94%. But in practice, BCBS says it’s only writing on 138% and up.</p>
<p>The agent has submitted a request to a “troubleshooting pool” to confirm whether or not there is any clawback penalty for estimating optimistically 
I’ll keep you posted.</p>
<p>Something minor, such as a $95 fine, would not be problematic, because on a Silver HSA PPO plan for a 22 year old in Michigan, the monthly cost is $230 without subsidy and $76 with subsidy.</p>
<p>YMMV.</p>
<p>Romani, if you don’t want Medicaid, I strongly suggest you estimate at 17k.</p>