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This is the business I'm in, and I hoped that they would ease the enormous list of Clintonian regulations before proceeding with the HIPAA implementation. We have always been able to release medical records (patient consent required except in special cases), and patients have the right to ensure that we do not release information to anyone. With Clinton's usual tendency for going above and beyond, the regulations were indeed burdensome to day-to-day patient care.

Despite what side your on on this one...one thing seems to really stick out...

Clinton sure left a trail of dog sh&t piles for the President to step in with his [Clinton] flurry of last minute EO's...

Go to the Independence Institute.org & look up Twila Wight's long article-Watching You. It will give you all you need to know about the phoney medical privacy crap-it's a cover for non-privacy, the establishment of files on EVERYONE, & alows only the gov thugs to read them!!! I'm too tired to post the link noow-she is a prof at Idaho U. or Idaho State in Boise & has just written another book, same subject matter. Serious academic with real head for getting to the heart of this.

Privacy rules are important but so are rules that protect the public. For instance, it is the law that any loss of consciousness, which may be repeated, must be reported to the health dept, then they notify the DMV. This is to protect the rest of us out there on the highways. If we guard the patient's rights completely then we are not protecting each other from hazards.

For many years, medical staff were not allowed to notify spouses of a patient's positive HIV status. Fortunately, the governor changed that so that partners could be notified by physicians if the patient refused to do it themself. But years went by before this change and much damage was done to others.

This issue of privacy is cumbersome for handicapped and mentally challenged patients. Prescriptions will not be able to be called to pharmacists without written consent. No one other than the patient will be able to pick up their medications at the pharmacy. They will need to do it themselves. That's just one example which would tie up a doctor's office and cause pain for hospice patients.

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.