Excellent!
EPIC's web page about
Medical Privacy. What's In Your Medical Records? Besides information
about physical health, these records may include information about family relationships,
sexual behavior, substance abuse, and even the private thoughts and feelings that come
with psychotherapy. This information is often keyed to a social security
number. Because of a lack of consistent privacy protection in the use of Social
Security Numbers, the information may be easily accessible. Information from your
medical records may influence your credit, admission to educational institutions, and
employment. It may also affect your ability to get health insurance, or the rates
you pay for coverage.
What Privacy? The
federal medical privacy rule went into effect on April 14, 2003. It gives us no reason
to celebrate.
The Assault on Freedom, Federalism, and
Privacy: There always have been busybody neighbors, dumpster-diving thieves, and intrusive
journalists, but protecting personal privacy has become even more important in the computer age. Threats
come from all quarters. … However, sometimes the gravest threat to privacy and our liberties comes not
from thieves but from government officials who claimed that their "need to know" trumps the individual
right to be left alone.
Doc, what's up with snooping?
I send my daughter to the pediatrician to find out if she's fit to play lacrosse, and the doctor spends her time
trying to find out if her mom and I are drunk, drug-addicted sex criminals. We're not alone, either.
Thanks to guidelines issued by the American Academy of Pediatrics and supported by the commonwealth, doctors
across Massachusetts are interrogating our kids about mom and dad's "bad" behavior. We used to be proud
parents. Now, thanks to the AAP, we're "persons of interest."
Government
Unveils Privacy Standards. The government Thursday [2/13/2003] issued
standards health insurers and other entities must abide by to protect the privacy of
electronically transmitted health data, but consumer advocates said the provisions would
do little to ensure patient confidentiality.
HHS
"Privacy" Standards: The Coming Destruction of American Medical Privacy
Drug
histories exposed. An investigation by The Harvard Crimson was reported in that newspaper
on 1/21/2005, noting that a Harvard University website, iCommons Poll Tool, for months had contained confidential
information on the drug purchase history of students and employees that was easily accessible to outsiders.
Why Rush Limbaugh's
Medical File Matters. Why should we care that Rush Limbaugh's medical records
might be exposed during a trial for doctor shopping? Because once his records are
revealed, our medical records as well as those for every patient in every physician are
at risk. When this happens, your friends, relatives, employers and health insurers
are going to know things about you that are simply not their business.
Big Brother Knows Your
Medications. A little-known federal program requires pharmacists to report patients' names,
their prescriptions, the amount of the medication they receive and the names of their doctors. In
17 states, police have access to that data.
How the Press
Distorts "Privacy": The establishment press is ballyhooing a recent Clinton-and-Bush
regulation as protecting the privacy of patients' medical records. Actually, the rule does
the opposite.
Privacy
Advocates Clash With Administration Over New Rules: At issue are changes to the
Clinton-era health care privacy rule proposed by the Bush administration that would allow health care
providers to use or disclose, without patient consent, medical records for purposes of
treatment, payment, or "health care operations."
Part 1 of 6: Medical
"Privacy" Regulations Destroy Privacy: Federal privacy regulations issued by the
Clinton administration on Dec. 28, 2000, and adopted by the Bush administration on April 14, 2001, perpetrate
a fraud on the American people, proclaiming privacy as their goal when ever-wider access to individual
medical records is their actual and intended effect.
Part 2: Medical
"Privacy" Rules Advance a National ID: Why should ordinary people bother to read the
medical privacy rules anyway? Media and government sources continue to assert the benign nature
of the new regulations, which are said to promise cost savings through database standardization along
with protection of people's medical privacy. Why be concerned?
Part 3: Media and Feds
Whitewash Invasive Medical "Privacy" Rules: For those who have learned about the federal
medical privacy rules through the popular media, the benefit would seem clear. Indeed, it is
difficult to find in the popular press any report that questions the strength of these privacy protections
or suggests their privacy-eroding impact.
Part 4: 'Privacy'
Rules Spread Your Personal Medical Information: A provision that facilitates virtually
unfettered sharing of our medical information between government agencies is tucked away on page 21 of
the HHS regulation's fine print. This provision allows certain government health plans, such as
Medicare or the State Children's Health Insurance Programs (SCHIP), to disclose individually identifiable
medical records to other government agencies without patient consent.
Part 5: How Big Brother
Foists Invasive Regulations on the Public: The only way these regulations might restore such
trust is if government officials make sure that people do not understand the rule's actual
content.
Part 6: One
Final Hope for Saving Medical Privacy: The outlook for medical privacy
is bleak. When the Bush administration allowed the medical privacy rule to take effect,
privacy advocates expressed hope that the rule's fundamental problems might be remedied
by future modifications of offending provisions, but such melioration now appears
unlikely. Although some revisions are to be expected, it is highly doubtful that the
basic structure of the regulation will change — at least not at the government's
own initiative.
Feds OK Spreading Medical Records
Without Written Permission: The government's attack on medical privacy has taken a new twist:
Hospitals and doctors can share private information about a patient's health with HMOs and insurance companies
without the patient's permission, the Bush administration said today. [Aug. 9]
Medical Hoax Slips Big Brother Into
Your Private Business: Hillarycare is coming through the back door. By the time you know
it's there, it will be too late to stop it. Your confidential medical records will be public
knowledge. In the next few years, it is going to become increasingly simple to transfer electronic
medical records over the Internet.
What Americans Need To Know
About Medical Privacy Regulations: Did you know that the federal government is going to change
the rules governing who has access to your medical records? These changes will make it easier for a wide
range of individuals and groups to access your medical information.
Trojan Horse Legislation:
Given that the existing system works so well, why do we need a new one? The answer is that what Colorado
doesn't have, and what the proponents of nationalized health care need, is a law letting the state collect and
store individual health information on each of its citizens. To sneak such legislation past a population
that has already said no to government-controlled health care, its proponents routinely disguise their
proposals as measures designed to help immunize The Children.
How to Protect Your Medical
Privacy: That privacy in the U.S. is a joke is rapidly becoming the consensus. But there
are specific steps you can take to protect your confidential information, particularly your medical
records. Well over half of the American people believe their private records, especially those containing
medical information, are widely shared by many who have no business having access to them.
Federal "Privacy" Rules Could Kill
You. When you have a medical emergency, you may end up with the worst of both worlds: Your
doctor won't be able to treat you without a federally approved consent form, and your personal medical
history will be available to the government.
Rep. Paul Joins Fight Against
Bogus 'Privacy' Rules: Congressman Ron Paul, a surgeon who knows the ins and outs of the health
care profession, agrees with the longstanding position that rules are, in a word, bogus.
Forbes Magazine: New Medical
Rules Violate Privacy: Forbes magazine reports that new federal rule changes relating to your
medical records is a "prescription for snooping by government officials and others" and "will only open more
files to unwarranted view."
Jail Awaits 'Privacy' Rule
Violators: Those daring to buck the federal government's new medical-records "privacy" regulation
could be denied health care, pay heavy fines or even go to prison.
Privacy Invasions Spread to the
States: The federal government's medical "privacy" fiasco may now be spreading to the state
governments.
"Privacy" Rules Open Door to
Socialized Medicine: The open sesame to American socialized medicine is not the reviled Unique
Personal Identifier but the "privacy protection" lock that will make that key inevitable. Behind that
supposedly secure lock is an electronic national data collection of Americans' personal medical records,
resulting from a presidential order imposing a complex web of misnamed "privacy" regulations. John Perry
explains why the new 'privacy' rules backdoor socialized medicine by requiring all Americans to be assigned a
health identification number called a UPI -- Unique Patient Identifier. By dog-tagging every American, the
government will be able to monitor and control every person's medical records from birth to death.
The Hoax That Keeps On
Hoaxing: Bill Clinton's regulation purporting to protect everyone's medical privacy may well be
his crowning masterpiece of political legerdemain, the ultimate hoaxer's ultimate hoax.
Asking your doctor about medical
privacy may be hazardous to your health: Denial of health care, perhaps leading to death, may be
in store for you if you're not careful when talking to your doctor about the government's pending 1,500-page
rule on medical privacy. It is an extremely sensitive subject with health care providers. They are
upset as it is about the cost of implementing it. And some of them may go nearly over the edge when
hearing complaints about the rule's threat to privacy. They see pro-privacy efforts as possibly making
the rule all the more costly.
Pressure to Make Medical Records
Even More Accessible: The rule, proposed in the final days of the Clinton administration, would
require doctors, hospitals, HMOs, druggists and other health care providers to share patients' personal medical
records, sometimes without notice or advanced warning.
Paul to stall privacy
rules: Critics say new rules worsen medical records requirements.
Federal Rule: Your Medical
Records to Be Shared: A key part of Hillary Clinton's original health care plan that would have
allowed third parties to collect your private medical data and records may become federal law in a matter of
weeks.
Health technology bill
could weaken privacy. A measure currently under consideration in the House could weaken
medical privacy by granting the federal government authority to preempt state laws, according to
critics of the bill.
Medical Microchips — Risk and
Uncertainty. It is a sad reality that many federal laws result in unintended consequences for
the public which must abide by them. Such has been the fate of the much-touted Health Insurance
Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), a law so cumbersome it took the Department of Health and
Human Services almost seven years to figure out how to implement it. The most significant unintended
results of HIPAA have occurred in the area of medical privacy.
Will "Health
Chips" Be Required for Medical Care? President Bush's former health secretary
Tommy Thompson is putting the final touches to a plan that could result in US citizens having
a radio frequency identification (RFID) chip inserted under their skin…. The
RFID capsules would be linked to a computerized database being created by the US Department
of Health to store and manage the nation's health records.
More information about RFID chips.
Back to The Privacy Page
Back to the Home Page
|
|
