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Medical Privacy Rules To Be Gutted
Logic Bomb writes "The San Francisco Chronicle says the Bush administration wants to loosen privacy rules for medical records in a variety of ways. It's the sort of arrangement where insurance companies are drooling but everyone else, from doctors to Democrats, is screaming bloody murder." Not really a surprise, given the current administration. The rules proposed during the Clinton administration would have substantially protected the privacy of medical records - keeping your HMO, insurer and pharmacy from selling information about your health without your permission. Doesn't look like they're going to go into effect, though.
The Bush administration pushes me closer from the middle to the left.
[news for me, stuff that doesn't matter]
Flamebait? It seems to follow from the language used that the fucking story submission itself is just a troll. The story set the tone, so this is a perfectly legitimate on topic post. Pull your head out of your ass, moderator.
This poster's name secretly replaced with Folgers Crystals.
Washington -- The Bush administration has proposed changing some of the federal rules designed to protect the confidentiality of Americans' medical records, including the ability of patients to decide in advance who should be able to use their personal health information.
The proposal would alter a federal safeguard adopted by the Clinton administration that compels patients to give written permission before their records may be disclosed to doctors, hospitals, pharmacies and insurance companies. The new version would erase that requirement, saying instead that patients must be notified at some point of their privacy rights by those who use their records.
In other changes that would loosen privacy rules, the administration wants to enable more parents to find out what medical services their teenage children seek and make it easier for researchers to gain access to patients' records. In addition, business associates of various health care providers would be given more time before they have to follow the confidentiality rules.
But in at least one respect, the administration is suggesting a significant strengthening of privacy rights: allowing patients to decide up front whether to allow their records to be used for marketing purposes.
The proposal, issued yesterday by U.S. health officials, represents President Bush's attempt to tailor a policy that has daunted presidents and lawmakers for years: how much control to give consumers over the proliferating access to medical records in an electronic age.
TINKERING WITH CLINTON'S RULES In April, Bush announced he would move ahead with a medical confidentiality regulation adopted by President Bill Clinton -- but indicated he would modify parts of it to make them simpler and less onerous on health care companies and practitioners.
Yesterday, in disclosing what form the modifications would take, Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson said, "The changes we are proposing today will allow us to deliver strong protections for personal medical information while improving access to care."
The new version was largely criticized by privacy advocates, physicians and Democratic leaders on health care. It was hailed by representatives of insurers.
"It's a major step toward creating a workable rule," said Karen Ignagni, president of the American Association of Health Plans.
She and other insurance company representatives, however, contended that the administration should go further to ease regulatory costs and give insurers adequate time to adapt to the rules.
Administration officials said they would allow a relatively quick, one- month period for outside comment on its proposal, before health and human services administrators begin to refine it and issue a final version. It does not require congressional approval.
In the meantime, the parts of the Clinton-era rules with which Bush agrees have taken effect, although health care providers will not be required to comply with them until next year. The basic aspects that remain intact guarantee Americans the right to inspect their own medical records that are kept in electronic form, determine who else has seen them and complain when they are used without permission.
CONGRESS MISSES DEADLINE The proposed changes are the latest phase in a controversy that has shuttled up and down Pennsylvania Avenue for years. In 1996, as part of a broader health reform law, Congress set itself a deadline for adopting patient- privacy protections, saying it must do so within three years -- or cede that authority to the Health and Human Services Department.
When lawmakers missed that deadline, Clinton's aides began writing the rules, which they finished shortly before he left office. Once Bush took over, opponents of the regulations resumed fierce lobbying, trying to capitalize on what they sensed was a more lenient attitude in the new administration toward federal regulation.
Yesterday's proposals provide the first insight into how far Bush wants to go to address their complaints.
Civil rights officials in the Health and Human Services Department, who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity, said "very targeted changes" were intended to protect patients' privacy while simultaneously eliminating facets of the original rules that they said would interfere with patients' access to health care -- and weaken its quality. That reasoning essentially embraces the arguments that insurers have raised.
Specifically, the new version strikes a different balance on patient control over access to records. While eliminating the requirement that patients be able to give written consent, health and human services officials said, the proposal would strengthen the requirement for health care providers to make sure patients are aware of their privacy rights. Doctors, pharmacies and other who use records would have to make a "good faith effort" to obtain written acknowledgment from patients, although not necessarily ahead of time, that they had been told about privacy practices.
Health and human services spokesman William Pierce said the revision would prevent the possibility that "you could have been stopped in your tracks" from getting needed treatment for failing to give permission for use of records.
Janlori Goldman, director of Georgetown University's Health Privacy Project, said the elimination of advance permission "cuts the legs off the privacy regulation."
In another contentious change, the administration's plan would make it easier than Clinton intended for parents to see their children's medical records in any state that has its own law specifically guaranteeing minors their medical privacy rights. Privacy advocates said that change would deter teenagers from seeking sensitive health services such as abortions or treatment for mental illnesses or sexually transmitted diseases.
But in at least one respect, the administration is suggesting a significant strengthening of privacy rights: allowing patients to decide up front whether to allow their records to be used for marketing purposes.
That "But in at least" is total trash. Its not "but" it's the whole point! Instead of having rediculous procedures, the Bush proposal makes it one up front thing. This is no different than the phone company. Go read a phonebook. The local phone company will use your information unless you ask them not to in writing. Should you do it via the phone there is a "processing" fee. In other words, either advertisers pay us or you do.
In short, this is a good proposal. The story writer is obviously biased. And the submitter is too, or just plain stupid.
Have you read my journal today?
That phrase about making a "good faith effort" to obtain written permission is crap! I'm self-employed and just switched medical plans. About a week after enrolling, I get a letter explaining how to opt-out of having my information released to my health care providers' "partners" who may have services of interest to me. Of course, since I didn't start out in an opted-out state, my information was already released into the wild. Now, I'm starting to get all of this medical junk mail aimed at senior citizens! Thank god they only got my address. If the marketing industry ever finds out I'm a hypochodriac, they'll bombard me!
Seriously, if they allow for any relaxation of privacy regarding personal medical information, you can bet your bottom dollar that anyone who could possibly make a buck off of that information will find a way to obtain it.
Some said to me the other night. "The United States is Doomed".
I said "No, the US is not doomed."
But looking a this story and reflecting on the steady stream of similar things, I have to wonder. Such blatent disrepespect to American citizens. Seems we are required to opt-out of a hundred things a day to maintain our dignity. Like a drowning man thrashing about trying to stay above the surface of a lake.
I get a vague sense of suffocation each time I read one of these stories. Make's me wonder if there might be better places to live.
I'd agree this one would be a close call. In the end, however, I'd probably metamod it as a fair moderation. Why? Because the tone of your message comes across as just a general outburst against the Bush administration, with bare relevance to the topic under discusson.
I agree with your point about tone-setting. However, I also understand the moderator's point; specifically, that, even if your post isn't blatant flamebait, neither on the other hand does it really add anything of positive value to the discussion.
If instead you had included a bit of discussion of the issue first before tossing out your opinion in a bit more diplomatic way, I would almost certainly have swung the other way. Perhaps something like, "By reversing many of the Clinton era regulations [give an example or two here], Bush seems to be furthering a campaign to destroy consumer privacy. Perhaps it's time those of us with privacy concerns sent a message by electing a different president."
I try to give moderators some leeway. This doesn't strike me as the kind of agregious abuse of moderatorship I have to deal with on a daily basis, even if I would not have made the same moderation decision.