Yeah, a well-implemented hack would make it more difficult than simply spending a night restoring backups. It would have to be more than a temporary breach to have a substantial effect.<p>The concept is to make it impossible to do business under the existing conditions. If hospital systems are unable to bill their patients because their systems are constantly scrambled by vigilantes, it&#x27;ll affect the cost-benefit calculation involved in continuing operation under their existing business model.<p>Undoubtedly there would be confusion and misapplied bills involved. I don&#x27;t see that as detrimental to the overarching cause. The only reason these systems are able to operate as-is is because their architects have devised a carefully fragmented and extremely confusing system that splits American society such that unity on the issue can&#x27;t be achieved without substantial personal cost to the members of the more powerful&#x2F;useful social factions.<p>If someone can level that playing field, we&#x27;ll be well on our way to substantive change. When the powerful people have to feel the indignity of getting their credit wrecked for a decade or more because their kid fell down at a playground and got a concussion, <i>even though</i> they took every precaution that the man said they&#x27;d have to take to survive this kind of routine nightmare semi-intact, the rules will change much faster.<p>At present, the poor get their medical care pretty well taken care of through Medicaid. The rich don&#x27;t care because they can throw infinity money at health problems (which is not to say they actually have to). It&#x27;s the middle class that&#x27;s getting raked over the coals, because they&#x27;re not rich enough to force a change through monetary influence and they have too much to lose to force a change through social action.<p>I&#x27;m really not even a single-payer or socialized medicine kind of guy, but the current system is the worst of all worlds. The ACA provided a few useful tweaks but overall the system is just getting worse and worse. It shouldn&#x27;t be allowed to stand.