Bush Acts to Drop Core Privacy Rule on Medical Data

We will now see how honest folks on this forum are. When Bush allowed that EO to be published. There was an outcry that Bush had caved on what they called a "Trojan horse" by Clinton.

Representative Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, said: "By stripping the consent requirement from the health privacy rule, the Bush administration strips patients of the fundamental right to give their consent before their health information is used or disclosed. The administration's proposal throws the baby away with the bath water."
Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, said he was "very concerned" because he believed that "an individual should have to give permission before medical information is disclosed."
The Bush administration denied that it was eviscerating privacy protections. "The president believes strongly in the need for federal protections to ensure patient privacy, and the changes we are proposing today will allow us to deliver strong protections for personal medical information while improving access to care," Mr. Thompson said.
Under the rules, doctors and other health care providers would still have to notify patients of their rights and the providers' disclosure policies. Patients would be asked to acknowledge in writing that they had received such notice, but could receive care without the acknowledgment.

To me, this issue has always been confusing. However, if these two DIMocRATS hate it, then it must be a good thing?

Returning to article for more study.................

The White House wanted to avoid the political embarrassment Mr. Bush suffered when he altered Clinton policies on arsenic levels in drinking water, global warming, ergonomic rules and the contamination of school lunch meat with salmonella. But after studying the medical privacy rules and listening to the concerns of companies in the health care industry, the administration concluded that major provisions of the Clinton rules were unworkable.

The political embarrassment over arsenic, etc. should have been on clintoon and his supporters for lying about the reality of that sham in the first place. Bush NEVER raised arsenic levels, but clintoon laid a political trap for Bush to make it look that way.................
did i say that right?....

Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, said he was "very concerned" because he believed that "an individual should have to give permission before medical information is disclosed."

I thought Kennedy was one of the leading proponents of a National Health ID Card. I guess it's ok for the government to have access to all of your medical info, but not the doctors and hospitals that will actually be treating you.

Typical.

The problems are created by third party payors, particularly the government. Since they don't want to pay for "unnecessary" services, they contend they need the information to decide whether services were "warranted". In the case of government, they write their own rules. When you get to make the rules, you make them to suit yourself. And the interests of concerned parties be damned. It's simply a variant of the golden rule. Want government to part with gold, they make the rules. And the beneficiaries bend over and take it.

Your post said:

"is that you do not own your medical records - those records legally belong to the doctor or hospital who created them"

They shouldn't have a right to create them without my permission."

You have a right to refuse to accept treatment (in most situations), but if you undergo treatment, healthcare providers have a legal duty to create a medical record, and then it (the paper or whatever) legally belongs to them and they have a duty to keep it for a period of time defined by the state.

The fact is - and a fact that is not going to change in anybody's proposed rules - is that you do not own your medical records - those records legally belong to the doctor or hospital who created them. You have rights to copy or access them, but they are not "your" records. Like it or not, that is the way it is.

You are right. In a similar way, "your" Social Security Number is not actually yours, either! It belongs to the government, not to you. It is their number assigned to you. That's why attempts to prevent the SSN from being used for purposes of identification (remember, it was supposed to NOT be used for that purpose) have been a losing battle.

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