A Government Database about our Sex Lives: Gee, What Could Go Wrong?

Townhall.com ^ | September 22, 2013 | Daniel J. Mitchell

[Kaslin]

I’ve shared several videos that make the case against Obamacare.

Here’s one narrated by a Dutch woman warning that America shouldn’t repeat the mistakes of European government-run healthcare.

Here’s one from Reason TV about how free markets produce lower healthcare costs.

Here’s one explaining the need to deal with the government-caused third-party-payer crisis.

And I had to reluctantly admit that even one of Karl Rove’s group produced an effective video on Obamacare harming young people.

I think all of those videos are well done and contain critical information, but I suspect the humor in this clever video may change even more minds. Or at least it will be more widely watched.

Fortunately, the creepy Uncle Sam is only symbolic at this stage. While Obama probably would prefer a single-payer system like the one in the United Kingdom, where doctors and other medical personnel actually are government bureaucrats, the immediate danger is that Obamacare will turn health care professionals into agents of the government.

And the politicians will then direct doctors and others to collect information that the government shouldn’t possess.

If you think I’m exaggerating, read some of the chilling details from Betsy McCaughey’s recent New York Post op-ed.

‘Are you sexually active? If so, with one partner, multiple partners or same-sex partners?” Be ready to answer those questions and more the next time you go to the doctor, whether it’s the dermatologist or the cardiologist and no matter if the questions are unrelated to why you’re seeking medical help. And you can thank the Obama health law. …The president’s “reforms” aim to turn doctors into government agents, pressuring them financially to ask questions they consider inappropriate and unnecessary, and to violate their Hippocratic Oath to keep patients’ records confidential. …Dr. Richard Amerling, a nephrologist and associate professor at Albert Einstein Medical College, explains that your medical record should be “a story created by you and your doctor solely for your treatment and benefit.” But the new requirements are turning it “into an interrogation, and the data will not be confidential.”

I don’t like the idea of government bureaucrats having my private information, but what’s probably most worrisome about this Obama Administration scheme is that the data won’t be confidential.

As McCaughey writes, it’s just a matter of time before hackers or incompetent bureaucrats make that information public.

Patients need to defend their own privacy by refusing to answer the intrusive social-history questions. …Are such precautions paranoid? Hardly. WikiLeaker Bradley Manning showed how incompetent the government is at keeping its own secrets; incidents where various agencies accidentally disclose personal data like Social Security numbers are legion.

Do you want details about your sex life put at risk of disclosure? That’s what this issue is all about, not to mention the fact that what we do behind closed doors is none of the government’s business.

And I’m sure you’ll be delighted to know it’s not just data about your sex life that will be available for bureaucrats and identity thieves.

Here’s what Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah recently wrote.

Individuals signing up are required to provide personal information such as Social Security numbers, tax returns and household income information that will be entered into the Federal Data Services Hub (Data Hub) — a new information sharing network that allows other state and federal agencies, including the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the Department of Homeland Security, to verify a person’s information. The problem? …Last month the department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (HHS-OIG) issued a report saying the federal government had failed to meet multiple deadlines for testing operations and reporting data security vulnerabilities involved with the Data Hub. …The repercussions of opening the exchanges with an unproven security system could be devastating, putting the personal and financial records of millions of Americans at the fingertips of data thieves. Other government certified systems have already proven to be less than reliable in protecting personal information. Look no further than the accidental release by the IRS this past July of thousands of taxpayer Social Security numbers on its website. …we can’t stand on the sidelines and let the Administration potentially expose the personal data of millions of Americans to more fraud.

By the way, everything written by McCaughey and Hatch also helps to explain why we should resist privacy-destroying schemes such as the Internet sales tax cartel being pushed by greedy politicians. I know I wouldn’t want all my online purchases in a database where state and local bureaucrats would be able to snoop for details.

And we also should oppose international tax harmonization schemes that are predicated on governments all over the world collecting and sharing private information about our finances. That kind of data would be a gold mine for hackers and identity thieves, not to mention there are huge risks of making that information available to corrupt, incompetent , and venal governments.

The common theme is that we shouldn’t let government have more information about us, particularly when the politicians want that data to pursue bad tax policy or bad health policy.

[Iron Munro]

Heterosexuals will be punished.

[Ditter]

My Dutch friend told me about Dutch health care about 15 years ago. She rushed back to Holland so She could take her mother to Germany for a procedure that she had been waiting for for 6 months in Holland. Unfortunately the 6 month wait was too long and the woman died in a German hospital.

I heard on the radio that European countries are finally getting fed up with their health system. You would think that obozo and the dims would catch on and pay attention to the mistakes of others.

[Excellence]

She pressed me and said that she’s mandated by the government to ask the questions.

Fine, but are you mandated by the government to answer them?

[depressed in 06]

If you are not having sex with your own sex, you won’t be treated.

[rarestia]

There are things you think of after the fact that you wish you’d thought of during. That’s one of them.

[moovova]

“If asked the response would be a simple: “Go F—k Yourself”.”

Many of us probably have a long-term working relationship with our primary doctor. I like my doctor...been with him for a good 20 years...with the same practice for over 30. He was my father’s doctor, as well as my mother’s. I respect him and value his medical care.

The main thing is that he’s on the same side of this issue as I am. He’ll understand when I avoid answering “those questions”. He may even give me some guidance on how to answer.

I hope I don’t lose his medical care over this. But if that happens, I can’t be disrespectful to the man (he actually saved my mother’s life after picking up on something miniscule during her regular office visit). He and I will just have to agree to disagree.

[maddog55]

That’s only if you can keep your doctor... then you have emergency room visits (which no one wants) and the acute care for a weekend visit if your docs not in.

Bottom line is they get nothing from me.

[moovova]

Me neither...

[JimRed]

Gee, once we get back in power we eeevil conservatives could use that data to put homosexuals and child molesters in those neat FEMA camps...

Is the < /sarc > tag really needed?

[Gandalf_The_Gray]

Can they force us to answer?

They sure can but they can't tell truth from a plausible story and they don't have the time to unravel tens of millions of "yarns". You can use their own rational, a good lie is better than the truth.

Regards,
GtG

[Lurker]

So stop being polite, the time for that is past. If these government agents start losing teeth the behavior will stop.