I’ve heard people discourage signing up for insurance on the exchange, because you must give personal information to the government. As opposed to giving that same information (and more) to a private company that will sell it to other private companies…and, apparently, give it to the government anyway.

Newsflash: the government already knows all about you.

On the Healthcare.gov website, after providing my Social Security number, I was given four multiple choice questions to confirm my identity. One asked the name of the company through which we refinanced our home mortgage in 2002. The correct answer was one of the four choices.

The next question asked the name of the company through which we took out a car loan in 2012. Again, they had the info.

The correct answer to the other two questions was “None of the Above.”

We took out these loans with private companies, and they passed it along to Uncle Sam. Now this info, going back at least 11 years, is all nicely linked with my SS#.

So go ahead and pretend that you just want to keep your private info out of the government’s hands. The truth is–they’ve already got it.