Illinois Medicaid officials under fire for no-bid ObamaCare contracts

Illinois Medicaid officials are under fire for awarding no-bid ObamaCare contracts for tracking, storing and processing electronic files for individuals’ most-sensitive personal health and financial information. Circumventing a competitive bidding process is disturbing, but it is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to privacy concerns under ObamaCare. The bigger concern is how ObamaCare might...

Illinois Medicaid officials are under fire for awarding no-bid ObamaCare contracts for tracking, storing and processing electronic files for individuals’ most-sensitive personal health and financial information. Circumventing a competitive bidding process is disturbing, but it is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to privacy concerns under ObamaCare.

The bigger concern is how ObamaCare might trample on personal health and financial privacy of all Americans through the sharing of information. The federal government’s own audit of the federal information system found that the security controls necessary to protect confidentiality have not been met.

Individual’s private health information will be at risk because under ObamaCare, individuals and small businesses will begin purchasing private insurance from state-based health insurance exchanges beginning on Oct. 1. The federal government is building a “data hub” to facilitate the exchange of information between the states, federal government, insurers and consumers.

If that “data hub” is not secure, then people’s most personal information could be used for purposes of identity theft and fraud. Imagine sensitive health information, such as a miscarriage, mental illness or erectile dysfunction, being made public.

While there is no full-proof system for protecting information, individuals should have a high level of confidence that their most personal health and financial information is being protected. The federal government, according to its own audit, has failed to take the necessary steps to provide those protections.

ObamaCare will soon fail to deliver on the important goals of health care access and affordability. More important, however, is that it threatens to run roughshod over Americans’ most personal financial and health information.