Amidst the hubbub of congressional activity and a presidential budget release, Capitol Hill has been rocked in recent days by news of something much closer to home: a data breach affecting the District of Columbia’s Obamacare Exchange, D.C. Health Link.
Because most congressional employees use the exchange to buy their health coverage, members and staff alike faced the prospect of having their personal information disclosed, with reports suggesting the data were already available for purchase on the “dark web.”
As a D.C. resident and an exchange customer (definitely not by choice), I too face the ramifications of the data breach. Thursday evening — more than 24 hours after congressional leaders notified their staff, and reports of the breach circulated in Capitol Hill publications — I finally received a notification.
The notice gave me the cheerful news that not just my name, address, email, and telephone number had been exposed, but my date of birth and Social Security number as well. As a consolation, the exchange provided a way to sign up for free credit monitoring.
But one person will not be affected by the breach: Mila Kofman, the head of D.C. Health Link and the official most responsible for the lax security practices that led to the virtual break-in. She, like D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and most other public officials in the nation’s capital, would not dream of buying health coverage on the exchange with the rest of the hoi polloi.
Officials Want to Keep Their Pricey Perks
Several years
