Chinese Hackers Targeted Insurer To Learn About US Healthcare (engadget.com) 157
hackingbear writes: When Anthem revealed a data breach that exposed the details of more than 80 million people, the incident raised a lot of questions: who would conduct such a hack against a health insurance firm? Investigators finally have some answers... and they're not quite what you'd expect. Reportedly, the culprits were Chinese hackers helping their nation understand how US medical care works. It may be part of a concerted campaign to get ready for 2020, when China plans to offer universal health care. Next, we should outsource politicians from China to fix our healthcare system.
Help (Score:2, Funny)
Well now they have figured it out can they clue the rest of us in?
Re:Help (Score:5, Insightful)
They were trying to figure out how not to do it.
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free giveaway (Score:2)
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There's a good chance that they just wanted it for data mining. There are some interesting relationships that you could probably infer from all of that patient data.
Also plenty of juicy personal information is probably in there. It's likely an identity thief's wet dream.
"Proprietary information" of the insurance company is probably less interesting.
Good Luck with that (Score:5, Insightful)
Insurers exist to prevent people from understanding how healthcare works.
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And it isn't because Anthem had crap security.
It is because the Chinese government was behind the attack.
Because the Chinese government wants ... to ... understand how healthcare works in the USofA. Yeah! That's it. Makes perfect sense.
It makes perfect sense. Because the Chinese government will be implementing the same model we have.
Oh, they won't? Their model will be more like one of the European nations'? Well it still wasn't because Anthem had crap security.
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No... They're learning what NOT to do so as to avoid the mistakes made in the US. Also, because the security that Anthem had was shit.
Me? I can go to the VA for a lot of stuff. Because of my knee and back, I'm told I'm likely eligible for some sort of disability but I haven't looked in to it. I usually just go to the local doctors down in Farmington. I pay cash (well, use a debit card) and I don't think it's that expensive but I don't really have much in the way of health issues that I worry about. I had th
Re: Good Luck with that (Score:2)
Nice post. It could use a table of contents though :P
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Slashdot seems to have changed the way Ordered Lists are done but, there you go. ;-)
Let me save you some trouble... (Score:4, Funny)
" Reportedly, the culprits were Chinese hackers helping their nation understand how US medical care works. "
If you're rich, you pay for your medical care out of pocket.
If you're not rich, you pay for health insurance that doesnt cover anything and then you die.
Re:Let me save you some trouble... (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm not particularly rich, but my employer offered health care plan is going to cover my kidney transplant operation at 100% (no deductible payment required, regardless of whether or not I've used it already.)
I feel bad for Chinese people, because the condition that caused what I have (IgA Nephropathy) is by far more common there, and due to a cultural quirk (the belief that the body needs to be buried whole,) practically nobody actually donates organs. The only option there is to pay a donor under the table, which with or without coverage you're looking at easily six figures worth of expense.
So at least in China, you really do indeed need to be rich, and you will pay out of pocket. And what's worse, is that your donor barely gets enough money to buy crappy Apple products.
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My employer offered health plan also covered my transplant. The deductible kind of sucked but it was still pretty tiny when compared to the cost of the transplant.
Healthcare affordability in the US is more about people choosing to live beyond their means and never considering any sort of financial hick-up. They will blow money on crappy Apple products but expect doctors to be free.
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Healthcare affordability in the US is more about people choosing to live beyond their means ..
I doubt you would still say that if you were self-employed, unemployed, or worked for a small business back in 2008. Because there, you wouldn't be able to afford the insurance, let alone the surgery. Try and get insurance or medical coverage with preexisting conditions like Parkinson, early Alzheimer, chronic blood pressure, etc. Large companies pay ~$1000 a month for employee insurance. Good luck getting that on your own.
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Prior to Obamacare, getting individual coverage was not a problem. The only reason I am still not on the individual plan that I had 10 years ago is because Obamacare killed it. It was always better and cheaper than any "corporate" plan I ever had.
One of the few useful things Obamacare did was the "pre-existing condition" problem. However, I would not have to worry about changing health plans if not for Obamacare to begin with.
Obamacare has not made insurance more affordable, not even for "low paid working s
Re:Let me save you some trouble... (Score:5, Insightful)
Obamacare has not made insurance more affordable, not even for "low paid working stiffs".
It certainly has. I had to drop my catastrophic-only insurance coverage around 2008 because it was just too expensive even for the limited coverage. Now with the medicaid expansion I've got full socialized medicine.
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Medicaid isn't exactly "insurance". It's the option of last resort if you are completely desperate. I would personally avoid it like the plague. Too many patient horror stories.
Medicaid doesn't pay doctors squat. They actively avoid it. It's like the worlds worst HMO but even worse. There are tighter restrictions on expensive drugs and procedures.
Medicaid, like the VA are why you DON'T want American socialized medicine.
Re:Let me save you some trouble... (Score:5, Interesting)
Sorry it sucked for you. But I personally know two people that without Obamacare's exchanges, one would probably not be talking today, and the other would have moved to another country for the same medication and medical service but 1/5 the cost. Sorry, but prior to Obamacare, there were a lot of people like them who "just got by" because they weren't chronically sick to be taken in by emergency care, but were slowly wasting away because the healthcare market felt they were unprofitable.
Obamacare is no where near perfect, but for gods sake, the US couldn't touch anything in Healthcare for over 3 decades! All those presidents and congressmen in that time were useless for the sick and needy of the US.
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Bone Marrow Transplant for me. From the time the decision was made to do it till they were pouring poison into me to kill my own bone marrow was a month or six weeks.
"George" (my new bone marrow - yes, my blood has different DNA than the rest of me, so it deserves its own name) and I have gotten along extremely well since then....
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Fortune favors the prepared. There are lots of people that could be prepared but American consumer culture discourages it. If you don't buy twice as much house as you actually need, you're seen as a subversive (no joke).
So plenty of people that could tolerate a catastrophe can't.
People are too cheap to spend $7 on the most well trained members of society but will blow a lot more than that on other useless crap. We've been conditioned to think that our best and brightest should work for free.
It's disgusting
Re: Let me save you some trouble... (Score:1)
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Don't really know ya but I've seen your posts. Good luck. Enjoy the opiates. I'm a Buddhist, we're a pragmatic lot, but I hope you get what's best for you.
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And what's worse, is that your donor barely gets enough money to buy crappy Apple products.
I didn't realize that Chinese [thestar.com] prisoners [theepochtimes.com] were [wikipedia.org] allowed to have electronic devices...
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The American Heritage Dictionary (1992) noted,"Moslem is the form predominantly preferred in journalism and popular usage. Muslim is preferred by scholars and by English-speaking adherents of Islam."
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"There have been so many proclamations about what Chinese believe in, how the Chinese culture behaves, how the Chinese 'spell' their names, and so on ... it is as though the Americans have somehow become more "Chinese Expert" than the Chinese themselves"
Sure, they hacked the Chinese health system to learn that.
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" Reportedly, the culprits were Chinese hackers helping their nation understand how US medical care works. "
If you're rich, you pay for your medical care out of pocket.
If you're not rich, you pay for health insurance that doesnt cover anything and then you die.
... wait, that's what the Chinese has already, today!
Sources (Score:2, Insightful)
I'd rather trust the Chinese hackers over Engadget, thanks.
Why hack? (Score:2)
Couldn't they just ask? It's not like these are state secrets...
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Particularly about risk management and pricing.
Aren't there books and research papers on risk management from Societies?
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Probably. But...
I had papers published publicly and even some patents. However, we had lots of internal IP. Scads of it that probably wouldn't have been novel enough to warrant the negatives of publishing and proving another company was using it would have been difficult, so there was no patent and the research will never see the light of day while it still holds value. Sorry, but that's the way it is. We did fund some research at a university a few times, we retained the rights to that work (most of it) as
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Hospital billing rates and contract insurance reimbursement rates are no great secret. Government reimbursement rates are certainly no secret (medicare/medicaid).
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Contract insurance rates are a secret. Each hospital/doctor has to negotiate it's own discounts and the insurance companies don't want anyone to know what they have negotiated.
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Hospital billing rates and contract insurance reimbursement rates are no great secret. Government reimbursement rates are certainly no secret (medicare/medicaid).
It's really quite easy:
How much money do you have? ....
Give it to us
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Um... no.
My employer sponsored plan pays on average about 33% of what's actually billed.
It's like you people have never seen a medical bill ever.
"Plan discounts" are common and tend to vary depending on the type of procedure and provider.
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There's probably an appropriate adage but it's usually the people who know the least or at the least impacted that complain the loudest.
It's like when I hear a crazy right-winger, who probably lives in a trailer park, yelling about taxing the upper class. I mean, sure, thanks for the defense and all - and I appreciate you thinking about me but I really don't mind the taxes - I just hate how they are spent. Hell, if you tax me more, it's not like I'm going to curb my spending habits or take my money out of t
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Couldn't they just ask? It's not like these are state secrets...
They're the Chinese Security State. They don't know that. They just know that we tell them that, and then refuse to tell them what the health system actually does on an individual level on the basis of privacy rights.
Remember when the Russians places a super-deep-cover spy program [wikipedia.org] in the US, and used it almost entirely to verify that what we write in out publicly available media is actually true?
So I could actually believe some bureaucrat in China with a hacking team decided too get this data in hopes it wo
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It's more likely that this was a criminal hack, probably to get people's names, birthdays, and SSNs.
That actually was my first thought... :)
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OTOH, if you hear hooves horses are more likely then zebras.
Pfft! What if I'm out on an African safari? Hmm?!? What then, Mr. Smarty Pants?
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Those hackers are still at work (Score:5, Funny)
Next, they're going to hack German restaurants to get some tasty recipes. I hear they're also hacking into Martin O'Malley's email to figure out how to run a great political campaign. And looking for dental information from the English. Etc.
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No no no ... they made an agreement with Obama not to hack any more and of course we can trust them, after all we trust the Iranians.....
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I think this predates the agreement. Not that it matters or detracts from your point but, still.
Re:Those hackers are still at work (Score:5, Insightful)
No, they hacked an American health insurance company to figure out how healthcare in American got so broken. They probably don't want to make the same mistakes.
I would like to see some evidence for once (Score:2, Interesting)
Every time it is the Chinese, the Russians or even the North Koreans. I would like to see some evidence of this. I have no doubt they, and everyone else for that mater, are involved in these shenanigans, but I highly doubt that there is clear cut evidence, or even just circumstantial evidence.
As far as I know every competent hacker uses zombies as proxies which leaves nothing to trace, if done properly.
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Every time it is the Chinese, the Russians or even the North Koreans...
No evidence needed, but can be fabricated on demand.
"USA is surrounded by enemies and under constant attack. Your government need more surveillance power to protect you."
Would it be that bad? (Score:3)
I mean, would a Chinese politician be any worse than a US politician, really? Any more corrupt? Any less likable? Moreover, the US a basically already implementing mechanisms of rights confiscation, ubiquitous domestic surveillance, state-controlled economy, a police state, etc. We're practically already China, in terms of how the government functionally operates. Would allowing Chinese politicians be all that bad?
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We're practically already China, in terms of how the government functionally operates.
No, we package our shits much better. They have propaganda departments; we have marketing departments. They are starting to learn political marketing from us, however.
Re: Would it be that bad? (Score:1)
Lol. I recently learned that the Nazis learned propaganda tactics from us (the British) at the end of the second world war.
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Fat lot of good it did them then.
More frivolous accusations (Score:1)
with no basis in reality. Eventually, people will realize that the accusations coming from a war-mongering country with murderous foreign policy onto a peaceful country simply doesn't hold up.
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bogus (Score:2)
Very funny (Score:2)
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Sure you can. Japan did it in 1945, and South Korea did in the 50s.
The marketing campaign to get Vietnam to outsource theirs failed, though.
Unlikely (Score:2, Insightful)
The United States - the most utterly dismal health care system in the industrialised world, is the last place on earth that anyone would look for a good example of how to implement health care. This looks like more US propaganda. Slashdot is rapidly becoming the mouth piece of a mad US regime, obsessed with China and Russia. The Chinese certainly have nothing to learn from the catastrophic failures of private sector profit from the sick and dying in America. Europe is the place to learn about how to implem
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If I lived there, I'd certainly leave.
Evidently you don't live here and that's something we both can be glad about.
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Fine. We have enough stupid liberals that buy into the eurotrash hype machine.
Why don't you boycott American developed procedures and pharmaceuticals while you're at it (instead of just leeching).
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Our healthcare providers buy drugs and equipment at market rates, the only difference is that that cost is borne by general taxation rather than direct payment by the recipient of any care, so what's your problem? Your precious healthcare and pharma companies still get paid, just not directly by the sick.
How embarrassing (Score:2)
"....when China plans to offer universal health care."
Jesus, even China is going to offer universal (single-payer) health care. Incredible. I hope that someday the US, with only 1/3rd as many inhabitants, can someday be wealthy and compassionate and forward-thinking enough to offer something similar.
The ACA (Obamacare) is a step in the right direction, but this country needs to step up and offer its citizens universal health care, the same way they do in countries like Canada, Morocco, Sweden, Israel, Singa
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There's lots of money once you cut out the insurance companies, lawyers, and too high malpractice suit awards but money isn't the issue in the US. There's a fear of socialism there and for some reason providing healthcare to everyone is viewed as almost the ultimate step towards it. Never mind that policing, fire fighting, and education are all public services and that providing healthcare would be a great boost to productivity. If people can go to the doctor when problems are starting then they remain h
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We would have to seriously jack up the tax rate in order to pay for something like that. Even then, rationing is likely as it occurs in Canada and Europe. That even happens to a certain degree even in the US already with what public options we already have.
There is no free lunch. All Europe does is play the role of nanny and take all of your money so you can't waste it on overpriced consumer goods.
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We would have to seriously jack up the tax rate in order to pay for something like that.
We shouldn't have to. We already spend twice as much per capita on health care than any other country, with worse outcomes. Half of our health care system is already socialized (Medicare/Medicaid). That means if we could just get costs and quality in line with the rest of the world, we could cover everyone, get better results, and eliminate all private insurance premiums using no more tax money than we're already spending.
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> We shouldn't have to. We already spend twice as much per capita on health care than any other country,
No we don't. That's just media propaganda.
"Quality" is already fine and probably superior. If you think we're going to eliminate the cost of insurance premiums without replacing it with something then you're living in an innumerate fantasy land.
You're like a bunch of Greeks.
Re:How embarrassing (Score:5, Insightful)
No we don't. That's just media propaganda.
It's the damned truth. Look it up. It looks like you've been fed on a diet of too much talk radio propaganda yourself.
We eliminate the cost of insurance premiums by getting rid of the ridiculous cost structure of health care in this country. There are dozens of countries who already do this just fine, and the people there live longer and healthier lives. This isn't rocket science.
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He's right though. We spend much more per person on healthcare than even the yuuros do, and we die sooner despite that (fig 1 [oecd.org]). That's not to say that our hospitals are bad (though some states really fail at not killing people), or that we aren't awesomely good at treating specific diseases, but none of that means you'll live any longer than the slackers across the pond.
Even worse, despite being a nominally private healthcare system, our government still spends more per person than even the UK (fig 3 [commonwealthfund.org]). A
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No we don't. Do you have personal experience? I do. You idiots don't even know the first thing about medical bills and you think you're qualified to comment on critical public policy.
To paraphrase Disraeli, the numbers lie. They tell whatever narrative the narrator wants to spin. In the case of liberal reporters, it's the chicken little version of the American health care system.
My own "big procedure" ended up being %25 of what the journalist class says it should be.
Any time I see numbers, or stats, or rank
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You idiots don't even know the first thing about medical bills and you think you're qualified to comment on critical public policy.
Odds are I wrote the software that gave you that bill, you insufferable mong. Your anecdote sure is compelling, though.
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He just gave you evidence showing you are wrong, and all you can reply is with "No we don't", then make some sort of fallacious appeal to personal experience, as if you can experience every aspect of healthcare for oneself and expect that to represent the entire industry.
You are lost. It's sad. The US pays more than most countries for healthcare, and the results are anything but great. You are like a battered spouse defending their partner. "They only hit me because they love me!"
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Oh please! Yes, not everyone in Canada has a family physician and the mental health care sucks but if you want to see a doctor there are clinics you can get into. I needed to see a doctor urgently, but not for an emergency, a few weeks ago. My family physician couldn't see me until the next week but I was able to go to a clinic located within a grocery store and waited 15 minutes to see a doctor. I'll admit that I was lucky with the short wait time. If I have an emergency or come down with a serious illne
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I know a number of international patients and I know what does and doesn't get covered. I also know people personally including a Canadian friend who was killed by Canadian medicine by lackluster diagnostic procedures when he was first diagnosed with cancer. They completely dropped the ball because they didn't bother to be thorough.
For all the "saving money cutting out of the middle man" you think you people could be a little less stingy with the testing, especially when it's something serious like cancer.
Re:How embarrassing (Score:4, Insightful)
That's funny, I know a lot of Americans that have gotten shitty and incompetent health care, misdiagnoses, and poor coverage. As long as we're throwing around anecdotes, I know one guy that was forced to turn down a good job offer because their insurance wouldn't cover his cancer meds. I also know a woman who only stays with her abusive cheating husband because she can't afford insurance for her Crohn's disease.
I never understand arguments like yours. Our health care system sucks. It's just as prone to poor care as any other system. It reduces freedom of the individual (unless you count corporate "individuals," where it adds one more control over their employees). It's expensive, it doesn't cover everyone, and we all end up picking up the tab for the uninsured anyway. It ties health care to employment, which is ridiculous - people making close to minimum wage can't afford it without subsidies, and if you lose your job, you lose your insurance. And the insurance companies will do everything they can to discourage you from going to the doctor in the first place; that's what the deductible is for, as well as the common practice of having all the "in network" doctors based in another city.
No system is perfect, but ours is just downright bad. You want to say the Canadian system sucks, go ahead - but don't pretend that ours is great.
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Seriously? The "in network" doctors are in another city? Are you on crack? Even the worst HMOs I've ever seen are not THAT bad.
You're talking some batshit crazy nonsense that you must have gotten from the democrat version of a tea party website.
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No, I got it from my last job, actually.
It was "cheaper" if all our service area was in Tulsa, so that's where our service area was. That's about a two hour drive from where my company was based.
There are doctors here that accept that network, we just couldn't use them. My sister has the same insurance provider and has access to local doctors.
I've talked to people in other jobs who have had similar arrangements. Some are lucky, and are given the choice to pay extra for local service. Some, like me, didn
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There is no free lunch.
Thank goodness our non-stop never-ending wars are free. Thank goodness we haven't had to spend trillions upon trillions that might have been better spent here at home.
Seriously, for the amount we've spent on these bullshit wars we could have given everyone cradle-to-grave healthcare.
We could have fed and housed every homeless person in the entire US.
We could have repaired most of our crumbling infrastructure (and created a shitload of jobs along the way).
We could probably have cured AIDS and/or cancer and/o
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Maybe, just maybe if we stopped waging wars at $3 trillion apiece we'd have money for kooky stuff like healthcare.
But there is money! The US government already spends more per-capita on healthcare than most other nations in that list, but just does not get much for it. The US health-care system is far more expensive overall, and produces much worse outcomes (both medical and other) than other industrialised nations. However, sadly, doctors in Europe may not be paid quite as much, so they may be forced to drive around in a 3-year-old Mercedes. https://danieljmitchell.wordpr... [wordpress.com]
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But there is money! The US government already spends more per-capita on healthcare than most other nations in that list, but just does not get much for it.
Yes, I know. At the same time, however, if we stopped pissing away trillions on blowing up schools, sand dunes, and hospitals we'd have even more money to spend on more worthwhile stuff.
Very ambitious. (Score:5, Insightful)
The Chinese trying to understand our healthcare system? GOOD. LUCK. BTW if you do figure it out, please explain it to us, Much obliged.
Ocare-35 (Score:2)
Maybe they'll swipe healthcare.gov and fix the design, like they did the F-35.
Holy fucking shit (Score:2)
Dear USA
Are you serious?
Feel free to blame China for everything bad - even imaginary incidents or those you perpetrate yourself - we'll believe it.
Noone is going to believe that China is stupid enough to even consider imitating your 'health'-care system.
Is this an attempt to paint the US 'health'-care system as something worth imitating?
How not to do it! (Score:4, Insightful)
I think they would be trying to find out NOT how to do it.
The USA has the worst public healthcare system in the developed world on a cost benefit ratio.
Americans seem to have this; well if you get sick its your fault attitude; and that general free public healthcare, as offered by almost every other industrialised nation, is akin to a communist assault.
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Well, we are talking about goods and services here. Those guys deserve to get PAID and paid well. They should be able to fully exploit the capitalist system for all the work they put in. The same goes for genuine innovators in Big Pharma.
The issue of "cost" is easy to distort since billing rates and actual reimbursement rates vary significantly.
Being able to "bribe" someone for a better outcome is NOT a bad thing.
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Careful now bribe is such a harsh word. Here in the US we call it lobbying.
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I was talking about "bribing" the doctors, not the politicians.
Saavy people in communized countries often use bribes to get goods and services that they might not otherwise have access to.
Want a consult with the biggest most well regarded expert in the country? Just f*cking pay cash for it. Put it on a credit card if you have to.
Ask for a cash rate. You will likely find it less dire than you think.
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Huh learn something new every day still wouldn't think that they would call it bribery internally.
Either way I would like to know more. The only country I have heard much about with universal health care is Canada and their nhs system and my understanding is that it covers pretty much everything except cosmetics and anything considered experimental. I haven't really looked into it all that much tho.
As for the cash rate I am fairly familar with that here in the US. I talked about it last month on here.
http:/ [slashdot.org]
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Well, we are talking about goods and services here. Those guys deserve to get PAID and paid well. They should be able to fully exploit the capitalist system for all the work they put in.
Australia runs a hybrid public/private system. Any emergency and urgent care is free and high quality, but if is non life threatening cases can end up in long queues.
Most middle class people also have private insurance, which allows them to see the doctor of their choice in the hospital of their choice.
We have the best of both worlds.
So they want to learn more about our health care.. (Score:2)
I call BS (Score:2)
Let's break it down. There are a few components:
Plans - but in a Communist country I'd expect everyone has the same insurance plan, right? Or is one animal great than another?
Member Information - things like name, gender, age, tobacco user, dependents, etc. Again, though, given it is a
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The American medical insurance is so broken there is no believable reason another nation would wish to copy it.
Why not adopt a more believable (and simpler) hypothesis that the reason medical insurance claims data was of interest was because of mental illness and sexual disease claims?
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Why not ask publicly? (Score:2)
Also, they'd be better off learning from their fellow asian countries, several of which have very successful healthcare systems. By government actually safeguarding a free and fair market.
Oh bullshit (Score:2)
2. If they were looking for inspiration, they'd look at Taiwan. It's a lot closer, and people are actually taken care of.
What the hell China, just ask! (Score:2)
Whooo Chines hackers, I'm so scared ... (Score:2)
Wouldn't it have been simpler to 'invest' in a US healthcare provider
Re: outsource consultants...from china? (Score:1)
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" The last thing we should be doing is accepting advice from communists from hostile governments."
Relax. If China were to actually adopt the US healthcare system, it would be bankrupt in a decade. It would make as much sense as the US adopting the Chinese legal system. There has to be some other reason why they are looking into our system. Probably they are developing a new hit sitcom.
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