Well Now Here's Your Problem

As a medical IT professional, it really does bother the hell out of me to read stories about the IT side of the Obamacare health insurance exchanges not being ready by October 1.  Then I remember that Republicans have been doing everything possible to sabotage that work, and the work of people in my field, deliberately.

And then I get angry.

The federal government is months behind in testing data security for the main pillar of Obamacare: allowing Americans to buy health insurance on state exchanges due to open by October 1.

The missed deadlines have pushed the government's decision on whether information technology security is up to snuff to exactly one day before that crucial date, the Department of Health and Human Services' inspector general said in a report.

As a result, experts say, the exchanges might open with security flaws or, possibly but less likely, be delayed.

"They've removed their margin for error," said Deven McGraw, director of the health privacy project at the non-profit Center for Democracy & Technology. "There is huge pressure to get (the exchanges) up and running on time, but if there is a security incident they are done. It would be a complete disaster from a PR viewpoint."

The most likely serious security breach would be identity theft, in which a hacker steals the social security numbers and other information people provide when signing up for insurance.

This happens to be the kind of thing I'm paid to deal with on a daily basis.  And yes, protecting patient data is of paramount concern to everyone in this particular field.  We'd be unemployed, rightfully, otherwise.

I am also then reminded that Republicans want IT engineers like me to fail.  They want to make an example of people like myself for their own political gain.  So yes, I take the Republican sabotage of Obamacare personally, especially the sabotage of the health care exchanges and data security surrounding them.  This is serious stuff, and you would think Republicans would want to make sure their own constituents had the utmost in data security for patient information.

Sadly, they hate Obama more, and are willing to starve these exchanges of resources they need in order to try to make a breach more likely.  Think about that, and keep that in mind when you hear about stories like this.