ON 2016, ALFONZO RACHEL HAS SOME CONCERNS

Planned Parenthood 'navigators' will have access to Americans' personal, medical, tax information

The Obama administration has awarded Planned Parenthood more than $655,000 of taxpayer funds to hire "navigators" for the president's health care reform law, the Affordable Care Act (ACA). State affiliates in Iowa, Montana and New Hampshire were among the 105 organizations receiving $67 million in federal grants.

HHS will not require background checks or fingerprinting of employees, and a previous criminal conviction – including one for identity theft – does not necessarily disqualify an employee from becoming a navigator.

Navigators and their assistants will have access to the federal data hub, an online nexus containing information from the Department of Health and Human Services and seven federal departments: the IRS, the Social Security Administration, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Defense Department, the Office of Personnel Management, the Veterans Health Administration, and the Peace Corps.

To expedite hiring before the exchanges go live on October 1, the administration has scaled back screening and cut new employees' training from 30 hours to 20.

This has raised concerns nationwide. Thirteen state attorneys general sent a letter to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius on August 14 saying the administration had "failed to adequately protect the privacy" of American citizens.

"As it now stands, it is inevitable that HHS's vague 'standards' will result in improperly screened or inadequately trained personnel," they write.

They say the department has not defined what would qualify as a "breach" of privacy, nor defined who is accountable in the event of fraud: the person, his employer, or the exchange.

State regulations to tighten privacy could be said to violate federal regulations, which they call "woefully substandard."

"Unscrupulous counselors" – whom they warn will be "minimally screened and virtually unaccountable" – will have “easy means to commit identity theft on consumers seeking enrollment assistance.”

They have asked Sebelius to address their letter by August 28.

State AGs have also objected that HHS diverted 20 percent of funds intended for disease prevention to hire navigators.

Others are concerned Planned Parenthood employees could abuse their access to sensitive information to harass their ideological enemies. The National Organization for Marriage saw its tax forms leaked to a gay rights organization and later printed on The Huffington Post by a full-fledged IRS employee.