400 Connecticut Health-Exchange Enrollees’ Information May Be Compromised
The personal information of around 400 health-exchange enrollees may be compromised, according to a statement issued today by Access Health CT CEO Kevin Counihan.But it's only Connecticut, right? Maryland, having almost utterly failed at creating a website, is reported to be on the verge of "buying" Connecticut's "successful" system from their contractor. Will we get this bug too?
The statement notes that a backpack was recovered in Hartford that held “four notepads with personal information for approximately 400 individuals. The backpack also contained Access Health CT paperwork and it appears as though some of that personal information may be associated with Access Health CT accounts. It is still unclear where the backpack came from, and we are working [with] the Hartford Police Department to investigate, and contact the individuals whose information may be compromised. … Let me be clear: we are sorry this happened. This is a very serious situation and we will hold the person or persons who are responsible to account.” . . .
From Powerline: Abstract of the week
Everyone who is awake knows that the labor force participation rate is at a 35-year low, making the real unemployment rate much higher than the “official” number of 6.3 percent reported this morning. Now see this from Science magazine‘s roundup of notable journal articles this week, posted without comment, as none is necessary:When you've lost Science...
Public health insurance costs jobs?
Gilbert Chin
What is the relationship between employment rates and access to public health insurance? Garthwaite et al. analyzed what happened in 2005, when the state of Tennessee discontinued Medicare health insurance coverage for about 4% of its non-elderly adult population, many of them nondisabled low-income adults without children at home. With a new need for private health insurance, which is often provided by employers, many of these people found new jobs. State employment rose by 6 percentage points from 2004 to 2006. This change mirrors the Congressional Budget Office projections of the decline in employment due to the expansion of public health insurance mandated in the U.S. Affordable Care Act.
Q. J. Econ. 129, 653 (2014).
Ramesh Ponnuru takes on Oregon's Republican Senate contender in her "fix it, don't end it" stance on Obamacare: Why Obamacare can't be fixed
. . .On her campaign website, Wehby, a surgeon, runs through a list of changes she wants made to the president's health-care overhaul. She would, among other things, get rid of the individual mandate to buy health insurance, offer more catastrophic insurance options on the exchanges and make it easier for people to buy insurance across state lines.A general feature of plans designed by politicians and not actuaries.
But she also wants to keep several Affordable Care Act provisions, including the one that bans insurers from discriminating against people with pre-existing health conditions.
You can see why Wehby would find this mix of policies attractive: Polls find that people dislike Obamacare, but they like the idea of "fixing" it and they like the discrimination ban. (They like it less when pollsters mention the costs of that ban.) In the effort to take the popular side of every health-care question, though, Wehby has come up with a plan that doesn't hang together. . .
Yep, the ban on the use of pre-existing conditions determine the price of insurance is one of the most popular features of Obamacare. It is also one of the more expensive provisions, and I'm sure that many people don't appreciate that fact.
Rather than attempt to critique a Republican with the possibility of winning a Left Coast Senate seat for a minor heresy, I think, with all due respect, that Ramesh should focus on what continues to happen if the left continues in control of the country.
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