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1 in 4 however collect social security. That number is staggering. It is not a good thing. Where for other races it is about 1 in 10. How do we fix this?

Education, which leads to increased economic security, which leads to better life choices, which leads to better health, which leads to less people collecting social security.

Diabetes, for instance, occurs in the African-American community at twice the rate it does in non-Hispanic Whites. They are also 30% more likely to die from Heart Disease and 40% more likely to have high-blood pressure. It stands to reason that there'd be a lot of S.S. claimants given the nature of these diseases and the associated health issues surrounding them, such as renal failure, heart failure, etc...

1 in 4 however collect social security. That number is staggering. It is not a good thing. Where for other races it is about 1 in 10. How do we fix this?

Education, which leads to increased economic security, which leads to better life choices, which leads to better health, which leads to less people collecting social security.

Diabetes, for instance, occurs in the African-American community at twice the rate it does in non-Hispanic Whites. They are also 30% more likely to die from Heart Disease and 40% more likely to have high-blood pressure. It stands to reason that there'd be a lot of S.S. claimants given the nature of these diseases and the associated health issues surrounding them, such as renal failure, heart failure, etc...

Very good point!
But just about any entity that deals with Medicare is a covered entity. And if even one of those covered entities submits PHI to Google, directly, then they would have to obtain a "HIPAA Business Associate" contract with Google.

http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/privacy/hipaa/understanding/coveredentities/businessassociates.html

Which doesn't make Google a covered entity, but does start to throw heavy responsibility and possible regulations their way. Of course, as with lots of HIPAA stuff, it is open to interpretation. That said, I am sure Google had an army of lawyers looking at this stuff.

But I did want to directly refute the original poster- it doesn't matter if the company you are dealing with generated the information. Even information YOU supply to them (a covered entity, or one under a business associate agreement) becomes PHI (protected health information).

That is not how poverty is defined by the U.S. Census Bureau. Poverty is defined in terms of income, not in terms of nutrition, housing, or health. See: http://aspe.hhs.gov/poverty/08poverty.shtml. And the research suggests that many of the people defined by the U.S. government as living in poverty are actually reasonably well-off in material terms: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2011/09/how_rich_are_poor_people.html. Poverty is relative. That's not to say that poor people aren't struggling in the U.S. or that we shouldn't help them. But the reality is that what we consider poverty in the United States is a life of luxury compared to what you'll see in many places in the Third World. When's the last time you saw a child in the United States with a belly distended from malnutrition? Have you ever seen that? If you go to Africa, you will. I've seen it. That's real poverty. In fact, one of the biggest problems with nutrition among the poor in the United States is obesity.

Check out the Federal HIPAA regulations for medical records. Here is a site listing their recent enforcements:

HIPAA enforcements

I'll be brief, although it's hard to not attack the ridiculous notion that Democrats are somehow to blame for poverty with mountains of evidence to the contrary.

The game here in "The Land of Opportunity" is getting increasingly rigged, like some ugly game of king of the hill, where the middle class is increasingly being squeezed into (relative) poverty --and it ain't because of people excited to get on welfare. Payments have been dropping and the percentage of Americans dependent on welfare has also dropped. It's convenient to think that a bunch of lazy poor folk are stealing your money through a program the constitutes the tiniest sliver of our GPD, but that's nothing more than a conservative fairy tale to rationalize their lack of compassion.

Take a look at this graph of changes in the Gini coefficient over the last 60 years in various countries. The conservative, anti-government contingent are absolutely right about people suffering a heinous redistribution of wealth, they just have the mechanics completely reversed.

I'll be brief, although it's hard to not attack the ridiculous notion that Democrats are somehow to blame for poverty with mountains of evidence to the contrary.

The game here in "The Land of Opportunity" is getting increasingly rigged, like some ugly game of king of the hill, where the middle class is increasingly being squeezed into (relative) poverty --and it ain't because of people excited to get on welfare. Payments have been dropping and the percentage of Americans dependent on welfare has also dropped. It's convenient to think that a bunch of lazy poor folk are stealing your money through a program the constitutes the tiniest sliver of our GPD, but that's nothing more than a conservative fairy tale to rationalize their lack of compassion.

Take a look at this graph of changes in the Gini coefficient over the last 60 years in various countries. The conservative, anti-government contingent are absolutely right about people suffering a heinous redistribution of wealth, they just have the mechanics completely reversed.

They just don't want people to know all their medical information got compromised as well. Just kidding (for now) but only a matter of time before some major RHIO/HIE/NHIN to be breached.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/money_co/2011/03/health-net-inc-security-lapse-leads-to-loss-of-personal-information-for-nearly-2-million-current-and.html
http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/privacy/hipaa/administrative/breachnotificationrule/breachtool.html

I exaggerated, but only slightly. See http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/privacy/hipaa/understanding/summary/index.html for the exceptions to the privacy rule. If a nosy tax-feeder can't fit his request into one of these exceptions, then he needs to go back to bureaucrat school.

For instance: "Law Enforcement Purposes. Covered entities may disclose protected health information to law enforcement officials for law enforcement purposes under the following six circumstances, and subject to specified conditions: (1) as required by law (including court orders, court-ordered warrants, subpoenas) and administrative requests; ..."

I am talking strictly about fines that have already been given out, not violations or alleged violations, which I am sure there are plenty of.

But don't take my word for it. Go straight to the source -
Violation #1 press release
Violation #2 press release

Until you can can provide citations for your claim, I am going with the official word from the Department of Health and Human Services. They have no motivation to cover up any fines they have given out.

I am talking strictly about fines that have already been given out, not violations or alleged violations, which I am sure there are plenty of.

But don't take my word for it. Go straight to the source -
Violation #1 press release
Violation #2 press release

Until you can can provide citations for your claim, I am going with the official word from the Department of Health and Human Services. They have no motivation to cover up any fines they have given out.

...and any business operating under the constraints/protection of HIPAA.

It's HIPAA, moron.

http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/privacy/

Welcome to HIPAA requirements.

You're precisely right. There is a REASON that there are policies - in this case, federal law that can turn into massive, multi-million-dollar lawsuits.

I always am amused when someone kludges something together behind IT's back because "it's easier" than actually following protocol to get a function. If you need a function, we'll work with you to get it done, provided we can legally do so. If we can't do it, we will tell you why.

Going around behind IT's back is asking for trouble. Worse than that, it ensures that IT looks at you askance from that point forward. There are users we work with and have no problem with, and then there are the assholes who do something behind our backs and cause trouble when we have to chase down their mistakes. Guess who gets first priority on the list of new feature/function requests?

Medicare for all. Like the rest of the civilized world. Or bust. Literally.

Medicare costs are ballooning; 9.1% in 2009, 9.6% in 2010. The HHS admits their 'error rate' (fraudulent payments) is above 10%. The real rate is higher yet.

There is still a little time left before the Chinese pull the plug on our spending. Enjoy it while it lasts.

"Free Speech" only applies TO THE GOVERNMENT. If the government tried to force Twitter to stop tweets about the war, that would be a free speech issue.

Here it is in the original text: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

I have no problem with people actually standing up for their rights, but people most people that do stand up have no clue what is going on.

A big news story from my alma mater was when the police tried to force a photographer to stop filming. THAT did violate his rights. Numerous people who defended the cop pointed to HIIPA. Which makes no sense what so ever. HIIPA only prevents providers from releasing *identifying information* about a patient.
Asking someone getting medical care their name: No Violation.
Asking the medic their name and getting it: Violation.
Talking about a patient with another doctor using no identifying information: No violation.
Talking about a patient with another doctor using identifying information: Violation.

NYT (company) asking Twitter (company) to stop something is no way shape or form a 'censorship' or 'freedom of speech' issue.

starve or freeze to death on the streets, like they do every single day in the US

Citation please.

a voucher for housing which can be applied to rent or mortgage or home repairs, a food program, a real universal health care system, home heating, etc

The US has all of these, and more.

• Voucher for housing which can be applied to rent or mortgage:
  • Section 8, HOME Investment Partnerships Program
  • Community Development Block Grant
• A food program:
  • Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children
  • Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program
  • Child and Adult Care Food Program
  • National School Lunch Program
  • Head Start Program
  • ...and many, many more
• Universal health care system
  • Medicaid
  • Medicare

  While these are not "universal", they cover everyone who supposedly can't afford private health insurance.

• Home heating:
  • Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program

These have been around for decades, and are still around and well-funded. Since they were created, the problems they address have only gotten worse--not suddenly, because of cuts, but gradually. It is obvious that "assisting" poor people by paying for their survival is not a workable long-term solution, regardless of how good it makes you feel.

...the real opposition to welfare is actually a matter of only slightly veiled racism on the part of conservative Republicans

Apply Occam's razor. Is it really more likely that those who want to reduce welfare programs are racist? Or that they want to slow the deluge of wasteful government spending?

Perhaps I'll quote some past US Presidents:

"A government big enough to give you everything you want, is big enough to take away everything you have." (apparently Gerald Ford)

"The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not." (definitely Thomas Jefferson)

Are these racist statements?

Does the proverb, “Give a man a fish, and you’ll feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you’ve fed him for a lifetime.” somehow no longer apply?

Mass General agreed to pay a $1 million fine this past week for a HIPAA violation. One of its staff members left the records for 192 patients on a subway train. They were never recovered.

http://www.hhs.gov/news/press/2011pres/02/20110224b.html

These are the kinds of practices HIPAA was designed to prevent. I, for one, am glad to see HHS enforcing these rules. Just the fact that someone could be carrying the records for 192 patients around with them while commuting shows how cavalierly some medical staff handle their patients' personal data.

You can read the entire Penalty notice, which lays out a good timeline of what went on. HHS sent them letters, phone calls, sign and return receipt requested letters, then subpoenaed them and after all that Cignet didn't even bother to show up in court. When the judge threatened penalties, they gave thousands of patient charts over, even though the subpoena was for only 30 records.

Looks like they had it coming, or else someone really badly has to fire their office administrator.

Different studies will yield slightly different stats. Here's one I found:

For all forms of abuse and neglect, the gender breakdown is about 48.2 percent make and 51.1 percent female, which is close enough to 50/50 to not nit-pick. See Child Maltreatment 2009, p. 22, "Child Victim Demographics", http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/pubs/cm09/cm09.pdf for that statistic.

The full article is behind a paywall, but the abstract for
"Characteristics of child sexual abuse victims according to perpetrator gender," http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7583755 , says "Both lone female and lone male perpetrators abused more girls (62%, 76%, respectively) than boys."

This study was published in August 1995. These numbers do not include victims who had multiple abusers working in concert. However, with the 3-to-1 preference for girls by lone male perpetrators, and that male perpetrators are generally thought to outnumber female perpetrators 3-5 to 1, I find it very hard to believe that female victims don't outnumber male victims by a noticeable margin even if other factors such as any differences in the number of victims per perpetrator based on the perpetrator's preferred victim gender are included. Sorry this isn't the rock-solid evidence you wanted but until something that contradicts it comes along, it should be enough to support the claim that female victims outnumber male victims.

For fun, you could ask them if they will be storing this personally-identifiable medical information in a data store that complies with HIPAA regulations... http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/privacy/ Then suggest that you will check with the local authorities (don't name anyone) to see if the store has been certified as compliant with the HIPAA privacy requirements, disclosures, etc. And finally, ask them if they *really* want you to write all of that personally-identifiable medical information on their form.

Sure, its like poking the bear in a cage. But in this case, the bear deserves it :-)

HIPAA isn't largely unenforced... It's just largely crap (for anybody that isn't a hospital). Store patient data on encrypted drives. Don't give private data to somebody who doesn't need it. Don't leave a workstation unlocked and unattended. Make a good-faith effort to maintain security. If you're reading Slashdot, chances are you can already guess HIPAA's rules.

It's pretty easy to comply with HIPAA and HITECH, if you've designed your system with them in mind. Unfortunately, hospitals (which are notoriously out of date by modern IT standards) are too often running old systems without encryption or secure communication. That's fine, but with one small problem: Any large (>=500 people) leak results in a big (and expensive) hassle to contact those affected and make amends. The company at fault gets put on a list, which may have other consequences down the road. Nobody wants to work with a company that leaks data. That's why there's still a significant industry built around upgrading old systems to be HIPAA-compliant.They'll update infrastructure, train users, review the office layout, and otherwise minimize the risk of a breach. They'll also review every computer storing patient information, and make sure it's encrypted properly. That way if the computer (especially a laptop) is lost or stolen, it's not considered an actual "breach", because it's unlikely that any private data could be extracted.

Again, if you're setting up a new installation, HIPAA and HITECH aren't really anything beyond today's best practices. Email can include private information, as long as it's secure in transit and stored securely. As in my original comment, that excludes Google Mail and almost everything that mentions a "cloud". Running an internal email server on a secure network, storing mail on a secure volume, is perfectly fine.

A concept of protecting a community against certain diseases by having a high percentage of the communitys population immunized. (Sometimes referred to as "herd" immunity). Even if a few members of the community are unable to be immunized, the entire community will be indirectly protected because the disease has little opportunity for an outbreak. However, with a low percentage of population immunity, the disease would have great opportunity for an outbreak.

Citation

McDonalds didn't "buy" an exemption; the Department of Health and Human Services said it granted waivers in late September so workers with such plans wouldn't lose coverage from employers who might choose instead to drop health insurance altogether.

I found it interesting that you chose to mention "Lots of Megacorps" but failed to mention all the unions that "bought" their exemptions too! And, oh, by the way, waivers are available until 2014.

From FactCheck:

Q: Has the Obama administration allowed corporations to "opt out" of the new health care law?

A: No. The government has granted more than 200 waivers, but these merely give companies a temporary delay before being required to improve the coverage of cheap, bare-bones plans they currently offer.

If you look in the right government sources, you can find evidence of similar sorts of stuff. examples:

• the mother is the most likely perpetrator of child maltreatment
• the mother is the most likely perpetrator in cases involving child fatalities
• outside of sexual assult, women are most likely to be the perpetrators of every other kind of child maltreatment that the U.S. department of Health and Human Services tracks

(I think that part of this is due to the distribution of childcare responsibilities in typical households amongst parents, but I think that it also suffices to illustrate that mothers aren't necessarily the best caregivers for there children in cases of custody issues surrounding divorce).

If you look in the right government sources, you can find evidence of similar sorts of stuff. examples:

• the mother is the most likely perpetrator of child maltreatment
• the mother is the most likely perpetrator in cases involving child fatalities
• outside of sexual assult, women are most likely to be the perpetrators of every other kind of child maltreatment that the U.S. department of Health and Human Services tracks

(I think that part of this is due to the distribution of childcare responsibilities in typical households amongst parents, but I think that it also suffices to illustrate that mothers aren't necessarily the best caregivers for there children in cases of custody issues surrounding divorce).

If you look in the right government sources, you can find evidence of similar sorts of stuff. examples:

• the mother is the most likely perpetrator of child maltreatment
• the mother is the most likely perpetrator in cases involving child fatalities
• outside of sexual assult, women are most likely to be the perpetrators of every other kind of child maltreatment that the U.S. department of Health and Human Services tracks

(I think that part of this is due to the distribution of childcare responsibilities in typical households amongst parents, but I think that it also suffices to illustrate that mothers aren't necessarily the best caregivers for there children in cases of custody issues surrounding divorce).

What the hell, it's feeding the troll, but I've got a quiet afternoon planned.

What? That's absurd. Who keeps voting against minimum wage laws? Who keeps voting against worker safety laws? Who keeps voting against extended unemployment benefits? How by any stretch of the imagination are Democrats keeping people in "virtual slavery"? If anyone, it's the Republicans keeping workers in virtual slavery.

Wrong. Democrat "safe districts" are almost always full of a group of poor, uneducated "minorities" with higher joblessness rates, higher dropout rates, higher crime rates, higher underage gang membership rates, the works. Democrats don't WANT the people in these districts to get away from the blight, however. If you have ever seen a Dem in these areas campaigning, or watched what they put forth in terms of policies, it is NEVER what actually needs to be done to clear up crime, get rid of the gangs, and clean it up to attract any decent business back to the area.

Want to know how Detroit became the shithole it is? Decades of corruption on the parts of corrupt assholes like Coleman Young, Dennis Archer, and Kwame Kilpatrick who systematically stole whatever tax money they could while telling the captive poor that they'd better not vote Republican because those "evil mean white assholes" wanted to take away their welfare checks and food stamps. Want to know how Los Angeles got to be where it is? How Memphis got to be the murder capital of the US for a couple years? Milwaukee? East St. Louis? How about Washington DC, where the poverty pimps had the machine so rigged that Marion Barry kept getting reelected and reelected even after being a convicted felon, in and out of jail, and is back on the city council as a poverty pimp even today.

Democrats don't want to improve the lot of blacks or hispanics. They want to keep them locked up in dead-end ghettos and barrios, reliably cut off from society and happily voting Democrat like cattle lest those "evil mean white devils" somehow make things worse for them.

The clusterfuck "No Child Left Behind" was a Bush initiative. Are you from Bizarro World?

Local school boards in my area are invariably Democrat.
Teacher's Unions, which seem to exist largely to ensure that the crappiest teachers stick around forever, are invariably and reliably Democrat.
Ted Kennedy, a Democrat, was the NCLB's primary co-author and its primary sponsor through the legislative process.
The NCLB passed the House by a 384-45 vote and Senate by 91-8; Nays were 5 Republican 3 Democrat in the Senate and 34 Republican, 10 Democrat in the House.

I think you're the one from Bizarro World; I already pointed out how much of a stupid, retarded RINO Bush was.

I don't live in Louisiana, and neither do most Americans. Just because the idiot on your city council are Democrats doesn't mean all Democrats are idiots... News flash: Again, PWARA. Look it instead of listening to Limbaugh and cure your ignorance if you dare.

I don't listen to Limbaugh because he's a partisan hack. I have better things to do with my time.
Of course, I don't live in Louisiana either. More states than just Louisiana got fucked over by the Katrina Debris.

Also, what the fuck do you mean by PWARA? Or did you mean PRWORA? As in this shitty piece of garbage legislation that is basically a meaningless, in-name-only change since it has holes in it to drive an entire truckload full of generational fraudsters through?

Any poor person, white or black, who votes Republican is even more stupid than a rich man voting Democrat.

Any poor person, white or black, who votes reliably one way or the other - instead of understanding the meaning of checks and balances and working to ensure that neither of these asshole parties completely controls the governmen

While I'm at it, I'd like to point out that more people die of drug overdoses from legal prescription drugs than do from illegal drugs like cocaine, heroin, meth (~8700 vs 10K-13K in 2005 a steadily increasing trend for the decade beforehand while the rate of illegal ODs stayed roughly flat).

If the war on drugs is about stopping people from hurting themselves and the people who depend on them, then what fuck are we doing?

You might be interested to know that the federal government (under the guidance of HHS) is funding and fostering community support for development of an open source health information exchange framework. This includes the software to run the system that health care providers (think hospitals, insurance, HMOs, etc) can install and run, and administration of the network backbone to connect them (also known as the NHIN).

http://www.connectopensource.org/about/what-is-CONNECT

How many people are too stupid to remember that health records are private for a reason?

I'm torn here. On the one hand, I would not want research on tissue samples being done outside of the scope of the informed consent permissions document under which the samples were collected. If that did, indeed, occur, the researchers lied to their test subjects. That is all kinds of unethical.
 

And it should have been blocked by the local Institute Review Board (IRB) who is supposed to oversee research involving samples of human tissue for this very reason (shades of Tuskege and vulnerable populations come immediately to mind). Either the researchers didn't get IRB approval, which is a career-ending mistake, or the IRB gave approval for what seems to be unethical use of the samples.

Neither of those seem likely so I'm betting there's more to the story here.

For those who are interested in understanding more about regulations concerning human research, the basis for current theory and practice is something called The Belmont Report (use Google). Also, for Federally Funded research, DHHS has specific guidelines (based on The Belmont Report recommendations): http://www.hhs.gov/ohrp/irb/irb_guidebook.htm

The only way doctors are going to go to EMR systems is when they improve the bottom line.

I believe 2014 is the target date to decrease physician reimbursement by 5% for not using EMR software

I currently do my patients records on paper. I bill much lower than I could, because I'm scared about penalties associated with being caught over-billing.

You should NOT be billing defensively! You need to have competent chart-audits regularly and bill for what you actually perform. You need to keep meticulous notes to verify your charges. Just because your office is "going EMR within the next year" and "amount you bill will increase" means absolutely NOTHING. They will still pay you the UCR rate in your area for whatever you bill for. Couple that with the fact that major insurers and Medicare/Medicaid are probably going to start paying a set fee on the diagnosis because of things like PQRI (see below), chances are you'll never make that up.

Case in point:

We have a doctor that bill $4000.00 for arthroscopic knee surgery. He only gets $600.00 and is very unhappy about it. We told him to stop doing surgery altogether and just do joint injections instead because they (payers) actually pay for that what it's worth, plus he'll save on malpractice insurance. If he takes our proposal seriously, he'll make more money for less work. Software won't give you that.

We have another doctor that tried out PQRI but for that extra 2% reimbursement it takes an extra 20 minutes of reporting per claim by the doctor herself. A chart-audit showed that all she had to do was bill her initial visit (9920X's) and she'd increase her monthly revenues by 7-15% (dermatologist - lots of new patients a month).
A different doctor (Psych) of ours asked about PORI and with what we came to the conclusion that it is nothing but research and for quantifying the data into a database to be able to start paying on the DX and not on the actual work performed. If you're a GP/Internist and you have a diabetic patient you're getting office visit reimbursement now. In the future you won't. You'll get a set-fee for the year and if it takes 2 visits, well maybe you're ahead on that patient but if it takes 20 visits you're out quite a bit of revenue... It's hard to stay on top of the reimbursement game.

Is EMR going to reduce the cost of health care? Almost certainly not. It will likely allow physicians to drill down into their database of patients to see:

Any decent billing software allows you to do the same exact thing. Even if it can't do it out of the box, chances are you can find someone who can get that data out of it with simple SQL queries. Our software does for the most part but since it is SQL based, I can extend any reporting easily either with CrystalReports or SSRS (SqlServerReportingServices) and in no time at all. Need to know reimbusement percentage? easy... Need to know detailed reimbursement analysis by CPT code and Insurance Company? easy... Need a recall list with specific parameters, again easy...You don't need EMR software to do that.

I don't presume to know your actual payer mix but if it's the normal 55% Insurance/ 45% the two M's/ 10% other you need a competent certified coder/biller/auditor who plays by the rules and investigates trends. You'll still end up with EMR down the road though some old-timers who still use ledger cards won't, but until more providers use it or it's a requirement to actually get paid... I'd wait.

Which is why you can receive a subsidy to purchase insurance if you can not afford it or "opt out" by paying a fine. Moving on...

You can't just breach the constitution and say "moving on..." it does not work like that. The fact that you total ignore the rule of law speaks volumes of your ideology.

Unless you are simultaneously reducing costs for Medicare by similar amounts or funding the proposals in other ways .

I actually did read the CBO report. They claim that they will save money by cutting reimbursements for medicare by %20 and add that into the bill as a savings, but there is already legislation in place that will reimburse medicare doctors that %20, canceling out any savings (300b they estimate for that line alone) made from the cut. Then they say that they will use 500b from medicare to fiance the new plan, and write that up as a savings, as if taking money from medicare is somehow magically saving money. Maybe you should read the CBO report.

Really? Your example truly shows the lack of understanding and confusion perpetrated about this bill. Please cite to me the section within either bill that states a government panel will hear cases on liver transplants and decide their validity, expediency, etc.

It's called the "Medicare Advisory Panel" And it's in the Senate bill
From one of the Doctors on the MAP:

Unlike allocation by sex or race, allocation by age is not invidious discrimination; every person lives through different life stages rather than being a single age. Even if 25-year-olds receive priority over 65-year-olds, everyone who is 65 years now was previously 25 years.
-Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel

*(not professional governmental accountants or the CBO) Your point? Long distance forecasts are entirely less than accurate. Which is why they call them "official estimates." There are also provisions within the bill to take steps to meet the necessary reductions should the plan not work as intended. Next?

Your trust that the government will manage this system effectively are not only unsupported by evidence, but is actually contradicted by hundreds of years of the government being totally infective in doing just about anything. Not only did they get the estimate wrong, they also blew all the medicare and social security trust fund money on... well not social security or medicare to say the least. You're told that the government is running a total 9 trillion dollar deficit. But that's not counting the over 100 trillion in unfunded medicare and social security liabilities. What on earth makes you think that the government can now be trusted with this third trust fund that dwarfs the other two? Isn't the definition of stupid doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result? If they couldn't be trusted then, and obviously they could not be, what makes you think that the situation has changed for the better?

Your trust in the government scares the crap out of me. Maybe it should scare you a little too.

I would continue but I need to get some sleep sooner or later. I look forward to your response.

It's "CMS". Somehow the Ms overlap or something.

http://www.cms.hhs.gov/

WASHINGTON, DC - Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Labor Secretary Hilda Solis today announced a total of nearly $1 billion in Recovery Act awards to help health care providers advance the adoption and meaningful use of health information technology (IT) and train workers for the health care jobs of the future. The awards will help make health IT available to over 100,000 hospitals and primary care physicians by 2014 and train thousands of people for careers in health care and information technology. This Recovery Act investment will help grow the emerging health IT industry which is expected to support tens of thousands of jobs ranging from nurses and pharmacy techs to IT technicians and trainers.

http://www.hhs.gov/news/press/2010pres/02/20100212a.html

Seems to me that regardless of any deadline, the Feds are making every effort to provide the financial assistance necessary to all types of health care providers so that Health Information Exchanges can be stood up and make electronic health records more available and their use more efficient.

Just found the numbers:
NHE (National Health Expenditure) $7,681 per person (for 2008).

Source: http://www.cms.hhs.gov/NationalHealthExpendData/25_NHE_Fact_Sheet.asp#TopOfPage

And...
In 2007, the latest year for which data is available, among 26 countries with similar accounting systems in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), per capita spending on health care remained highest in the United States (US$7,290). The U.S. was followed by Norway (US$4,763), Switzerland (US$4,417) and Luxembourg (US$4,162). At around US$3,895 per capita, health care spending in Canada was similar to six other OECD countries, including the Netherlands, Austria, France and Germany.
http://www.cihi.ca/cihiweb/dispPage.jsp?cw_page=media_20091119_e

There's a reason I use my HIPPA rights to make sure my records only live on paper.

That would be your HIPAA rights.

At a minimum, HIPAA should apply http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/privacy/

Click Me

Well over 2 trillion a year.

Umm your worldview is outdated, since the late 1990's there are only temporary welfare payments to non-disabled persons under 65 (those that are either disabled or over 65 do get benefits from social security and or Medicaid/Medicare but I have a feeling you were talking about non-seniors that can work but choose not to). So unless your community has a separate welfare system that is completely supported by State or Local taxes what you are complaining about isn't really possible, as eventually their checks will stop being sent. Now they could be broke and homeless and still come to the library because it's a free public space that provides shelter and internet access during the day but they wouldn't be on welfare.

Sorry, but my understanding is that women who keep getting knocked up continue to keep getting welfare benefits, and also the millions of "disabled" people out there who have "disabilities" such as not being able to read, or having a "back problem". There's an incredible amount of disability fraud out there.

Then you're understanding is wrong on both counts.

To start with "women who keep getting knocked up" are owed money, but since 1996 this money is supposed to come from the men who "knocked them up" not the general tax payer. While there still are programs like TANF, they are by nature temporary and most recipients have real incentives to get off as soon as possible.

Here is a link to a fairly concise explanation of what the Social Security Administration considers an applicable disability (hint: simple illiteracy isn't one of them and learning disabilities may fall under the American with Disabilities Act for educational and workplace accommodations but that has nothing to do with disability welfare benefits). "Disability checks" could also come from the SSI, but that also requires a source of legal income since it is an income supplement. Finally on the subject of disabilities fraud, if you have probable cause that any specific person or persons are fraudulently claiming benefitsthese people would love to hear from you!

And yes, I'm talking about non-seniors who are able-bodied but too lazy to work; anyone who's genuinely disabled, or has earned Social Security benefits through a lifetime of work, is not in the same class as these lazy cheats that our stupid system keeps enabling with my tax dollars.

While our system is far from perfect I hope you look at the links I provided and see that for over a decade it hasn't the open-ended system you described it as.

Aside from what the writer intended, that being "parish" is a subdivision of Louisiana, as a "county" is a subdivision of Texas or Tennessee - while federal sponsorship of religion is barred from the Constitution, that hasn't prevented it from happening. See HHS.gov for an example.

No, I don't think you understand HIPAA very well. It DOES allow for a number of disclosures without patient consent:

To law enforcement

To treating physicians and other clinicians, for public health activities, for health oversight purposes, to protect against personal and material harm

Even for marketing

And a raft of others.

This is not the bogeyman you are looking for.

No, I don't think you understand HIPAA very well. It DOES allow for a number of disclosures without patient consent:

To law enforcement

To treating physicians and other clinicians, for public health activities, for health oversight purposes, to protect against personal and material harm

Even for marketing

And a raft of others.

This is not the bogeyman you are looking for.

Sorry, but you forgot the other 'A'. I hate it when that happens.

No, it would be the same. The baby boomers who are running things act exactly like children.

Arguments based on who is in the better clique, not on the real issues or ways to solve problems or whether or not the government should try to solve certain problems in the first place. Their attempts to solve problems are based upon only a very superficial look at the problem and solution.

They succumb easily to bribes. They only consider their specific situation--one of the "solutions" for healthcare was to lower the medicare age to 55? That only helps baby boomers and no one else. In fact, the majority of people who are unable to get health insurace for themselves are under 30. Look at these figures. The percentage of uninsured poor is 21% for the ages 25-34 (the highest), and only 7% for ages 55-64. How does decreasing the medicare age to 55 help the healthcare crisis?

They act like a bunch of immature spoiled bastards who have no consideration for society in general. WTF? Mod me offtopic if you want, but my point is we have a total failure of leadership in the United States. These absurd regulation talks about the internet are just a small distraction from it.

They are just legislating things for their specific preferences, and most baby boomers don't run any game servers or web sites, so they don't care if your freedom to do such things are taken away. That is why we have these issues. Because they are in control and they don't give a shit about anyone else. In a non-tyrannical government, the leaders would act in ways which are considerate of everyone, but this is not what we have here.

I'm not sure about the Netherlands but the US uses the vaccine adverse event reporting system to track all vaccine associated illness and its public ally available....the side effects seem to be about the same as most seasonal flu shots.

The actual document is here:
http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/privacy/hipaa/understanding/coveredentities/federalregisterbreachrfi.pdf

I started to post several derogatory comments as I read through it but eventually I came to the conclusion that while nearly unfathomable to most readers it doesn't completely suck.

In several cases they specifically ask for comment from the public where they think there may be valid concern and I think they accurately identified the weak links where they requested comment. If you have an opinion you might consider posting it there rather than (or in addition to) here.

They do actually address reporting breaches of encrypted data where that encryption could arguably have been broken or circumvented.

I don't quite understand the logic of not simply reporting any breach but it's hardly the disaster it's being made out to be.

I agree, how can we even have a discussion about some mythical 'right' to healthcare? Hint: It isn't a 'right' if it requires the enslavement of someone else.

Now if that isn't a straw man. Enslavement? Maybe you were going for hyperbole?

Look, whether or not a government option is the best plan is up for debate. But in a report issued under the (last) Bush administration, the projected percent of the GDP that will be spent on healthcare in 2018 is 20%. That is one in every five dollars of wealth created in the USA. That is the status quo.

Going under the assumption that 20% is not desirable and that the status quo will get us to 20%, what do you think we should do? Pick one: (1) see how much we can spend on health care by ignoring its financial drain on the US economy (default), (2) enact legislation that may halt the trend, (3) pray to God that he intervenes to save us and rely on our unwavering faith in a higher power?

And you do realize that the slope of the curve will be positive when we hit that 20%, don't you? Here is my reference.

They make money buy making healthcare cheaper

Do they? When was the last time United Healthcare invested in a drug patent or drug research in order to bring drugs to market more cheaply than a company that was solely interested in maximizing the amount it could charge for the drug? How many generations of heart valves has Aetna's technicians invented? Which insurance companies are encouraging healthcare providers to adhere to best practices in treatments (not counting Medicare)?

Last I checked, most insurance companies work by taking a lot of money from a lot of people and paying back some of the money to some of the people, and the rest goes to salaries (and stockholders).

Let's hear a couple of those "many more ways" insurance companies are keeping prices down. Maybe you could tell us how much more health care costs would be inflating if the insurance companies weren't there.