Attorneys General from 13 states are urging the public to beware of the potential for identity theft and fraud by inadequately screened ObamaCare navigators who will have access to consumers’ health and tax information.
The Christian Post is reporting that the Attorneys General for the states of West Virginia Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Texas have sent a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary (HHS) Kathleen Sebelius expressing their concerns about potential dangers posed to consumers by ObamaCare navigators.
One of the problems is that due to timing constraints, the HHS is cutting back on the requirements to become a navigator. This means there will be no background checks and no fingerprinting. And it’s not just the navigators but also the people who will be assisting them.
Officials are also worried that navigator training hours have been reduced from 30 hours to 20 hours which they believe could lead to “inadequately trained personnel” who would be more prone to “misappropriate – accidentally or intentionally – the private data of consumers – or worse.
“These navigators will have consumers’ most personal and private information – tax return information, social security information,” said Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi to Fox News. “And our biggest fear, of course, is identity theft. Even federal requirements for census takers are tougher than the requirements for navigators.”
These problems are exacerbated by the fact that the fast approaching deadline is leaving nonprofits and health care organizations only 32 days to screen, train and hire navigators, which they fear could lead to the hiring of criminals.
According to former Sen. Tim Hutchison (R-Ark.), told Fox Business’ Neil Cavuto on Friday that navigators are not just assigned the task of guiding people through the process of signing up for ObamaCare. Instead, they are being trained as “aggressive recruiters going out to recruit people to sign up to enroll for these exchanges.”
The Attorneys General have given Ms. Sebelius until August 28 to respond to their concerns.
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