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As I understand it, hospital patient confidentiality rules DON'T apply to a patient who has died.

I don't think that's the case. I seem to recall that the confidentiality privilege then becomes the "property" of the estate of the deceased person. Otherwise, medical personnel could sell all kinds of embarassing medical details to the tabloids after a celebrity died. Obama is the only person (barring some sort of court order) who could permit the hospital to discuss his medical records and the medical records of his deceased mother.

For instance, suppose you walked into a Hawaii hospital and asked this question: Was president Bush born there?

The legally correct response, if hospital personnel were trained to comply with privacy laws, would be for them to neither confirm nor deny that fact. Otherwise, people could do an end run around privacy laws- if a hospital will tell you that someone was not a patient, then if they refuse to comment on a particular person, then you know that person was a patient.

Again, could you please explain what legal responsibilities does a hospital have if it was not the hospital where Obama's mother was a NOT a patient, especially now that she is dead?

Can't the numerous Hawaii hospitals where Stanley Obama/Dunham was NOT a patient on Aug. 4, 1961 simply legally say that she was NOT a patient at the hospital?

1. For instance, let's say a reporter is doing a story on me,John Mirse,(just my screenname) who recently died .

2. The reporter walks into a Hawaii hospital and explains to the hospital administrator that he is doing a story on me, who recently died.

The reporter explains that John Mirse was a local hero back in Kansas (not where I really live), and it seems that he spent some time in a Hawaii hospital when he was in the military during the Vietnam War.

The reporter explains that he came to Hawaii to try to find out if any Hawaii hospital had a record of a John Mirse being in a Hawaii hospital during the Vietnam war.

3. Do you really think that hospital personnel will say nothing, or do you think that the hospital personnel will cooperate with the reporter and at least check hospital records to see if a John Mirse was ever a patient at that Hawaii hospital?

4. I say that the Hawaii hospital would have no legal restraints to at least tell the reporter whether or not a John Mirse was ever a patient at the hospital, the main reason being that I was dead.

5. My point is this: On the one hand, it is one thing for a Hawaii hospital to say that it cannot reveal details of why a person was in that particular hospital, but, on the other hand, it is another thing to simply say whether or not a person was ever a patient in that hospital, especially if the patient is now dead, or, if the person was never a patient in that particular hospital to begin with.