STOCK MARKET WATCH -- Wednesday, 21 August 2013

[Demeter]

6. ObamaCare’s Relentless Creation of Second-Class Citizens (6) By lambert strether

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/08/obamacares-relentless-creation-of-second-class-citizens-6.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NakedCapitalism+%28naked+capitalism%29

In this continuing series, we’ve been looking at how ObamaCare, through its inherent system architecture, relentlessly creates first- and second-class citizens; how it treats citizens, who should be treated equally, unequally, for whimsical or otherwise bogus reasons. It’s all in the luck of the draw! If you live in the right place or have the right demographic, you go first class to Happyville. If you don’t, you go in coach to Pain City.

If Social Security were implemented like ObamaCare, citizens in Libby, MT would get a bigger check, because; you couldn’t get a Social Security payment if you were debanked, and didn’t have a checking account; you’d get one kind of Social Security from the government if you were poor, and several other kinds of Social Security from private companies if you were not; you’d get a bonus Social Security check if you worked on Capitol Hill; you’d be encouraged to collect your benefits if you were in the right demographic, but otherwise not; your benefits would depend on your projected income, which would be checked by a private credit reporting agency; and your check would vary wildly from state to state, and even from county to county. Who could possibly support such a crazy system? Well, Democratic hacks — Obama being a putative Democrat — but we’ll get to that in a subsequent post. First, I’d like to show how non-English speakers can be discriminated against in some offerings on some Exchanges. Next, I’ll look at some of the challenges that the Navigators will face when helping citizens consumers declare their income.

First, and amazingly, Obama decided in late July to allow private firms — “web broker entities” like ehealthinsurance.com — to integrate their offerings on the Federal Exchange in the 36 states that aren’t running their own exchanges.* Of course, since we have, as of this writing, 42 days until the Exchanges open, it’s a little early to ask what the integration is actually going to look like {snort}. For example, will the “trade dress” for all pages look the same? If not, will the private or the public branding dominate? And so forth. However, it does seem to me that there’s one real potential difference. CMS mandates that a “Privacy Notice Statement” be displayed on the ehealthinsurance.com pages, so that “The Exchanged” citizens consumers can know what information the Feds are collecting about them and what can be done with it. Here is the relevant clause:

AGREEMENT BETWEEN WEB-BROKER ENTITY AND
THE CENTERS FOR MEDICARE AND MEDICAID SERVICES FOR THE
FEDERALLY-FACILITATED EXCHANGE INDIVIDUAL MARKET …

(2) Openness and Transparency. In keeping with the standards and implementation specifications used by the FFE, Non-Exchange Entities [i.e., web broker entities like ehealthinsurance.com] must ensure openness and transparency about policies, procedures, and technologies that directly affect Consumers, Applicants, Qualified Individuals, Enrollees, Qualified Employers, and Qualified Employees, and their PII (Personally Identifying Information).

a. Standard: Privacy Notice Statement. Prior to collecting PII, the Non-Exchange Entity must provide a notice that is prominently and conspicuously displayed on a public facing Web site, if applicable, or on the electronic and/or paper form the Non-Exchange Entity will use to gather and/or request PII.
i. Implementation Specifications.
1. The statement must be written in plain language and provided in a manner that is accessible and timely to people living with disabilities and with limited English proficiency.

So, there won’t be a Spanish version of the Privacy Notice Statement? Healthcare.gov has a complete, parallel version in Spanish. Why isn’t eheathinsurance.com being held to the same standard? I guess if you’re English speaking, you get to go to Happyville. And if you’re not, who cares about privacy? I mean, your information is only being processed by DHS, HHS, the IRS, credit reporting agencies, and the Peace Corps, so how could there possibly be an risk of a privacy breach and a trip to Pain City?

MORE SHEER MADNESS AT LINK....