The California health exchange has admitted it has been divulging contact information for tens of thousands of consumers to insurance agents without their permission or knowledge in an effort to hit deadlines for coverage.
Covered California said it was handing out consumer information as part of a pilot program to help people enroll ahead of a Dec. 23 deadline to have health insurance in place by the new year, according to the Los Angeles Times. The consumers in question had gone online to research insurance options, but didn’t ask to be contacted.
Social Security numbers, income and other information were not provided to the agents, but names, addresses, phone numbers and email addresses were made available, exchange officials said.
The names provided by Covered California include people who started an insurance application on the website but didn’t complete the process.
State officials say they do not know exactly how many people are affected by the information sharing.
Whoever is in charge, your team or mine, they are gonna think that what they are doing is in the best interest of the people.
And it just gets worse from there.