What didn't come up during the president's first press conference was how one section of the convoluted legislation--it's approximately 800 pages total--is intended to radically reshape the nation's medical system by having the government establish computerized medical records that would follow each American from birth to death.Those considering running for office should be very careful about this. Famous bloggers who use their real names (Kos, Glenn Reynolds, etc.) should be concerned by this. Small-time bloggers who criticize crooked local politicians should be concerned by this. You think my concern is overblown? Need I remind you:
Billions will be handed to companies creating these databases. Billions will be handed to universities to incorporate patient databases "into the initial and ongoing training of health professionals." There's a mention of future "smart card functionality."
Yet nowhere in this 140-page portion of the legislation does the government anticipate that some Americans may not want their medical histories electronically stored, shared, and searchable. Although a single paragraph promises that data-sharing will "be voluntary," there's no obvious way to opt out.
Government computers used to find information on Joe the PlumberDoctors have a sworn ethical obligation to safeguard medical records. They can get sued and lose their license for violations. Politicians and their lackeys who dig around government databases? They can use "private" government files to dig up dirt on people they don't like and as long as a pol higher up covers for them they do so with impunity. If they get caught? Big deal. They get fired and the next day they are hired by a lobbyist.
Investigators trying to determine whether access was illegal
Friday, October 24, 2008 8:57 PM
State and local officials are investigating if state and law-enforcement computer systems were illegally accessed when they were tapped for personal information about "Joe the Plumber."
I guarantee you that there are escape clauses allowing for the current crap of DC pols to get out of this. Their future political adversaries, us bloggers, investigative reporters, everyone else, we're SOL.
Update: See what's happening in the UK.
(Woah! Instalanche! Thanks, Glenn.)
18 comments:
I think this is actually a legitimate concern. Having said that, this works without being abused in other countries (like here in Norway) and I personally think the benefits outweighs that risk. It is possible to set up the system that preserves piracy, although we don't really know what the administration is proposing.
Also, there might be something about the US which would make such a system more susceptible than it has been here though? US politics does get very personal sometimes
Lou,
If we had a real press acting like the watchdogs that our founders envisioned, this would be all over the news.
Our country was founded on the idea of self-reliance and a fair amount of distrust for the government. Sad to see us go in the wrong direction.
By the way, like the makeover. Was Robert Downey in "Tropic Thunder" your inspiration?
Hey, as long as the government isn't listening-in to the collect calls that I receive from South Waziristan what do I care?
There's lots to worry about in the HC provisions of the Big Stim, but I'm not too sure this is one. First, central-repository and smart-card would help providers and patients enormously. Second, HIPAA will finally come into its own and become something besides an encumbrance. It's a much more useful club to use on official leakers than the garden-variety state privacy laws available to JtP, and far harder to avoid, especially by state officials. Just make sure there's a private right of action for unauthorized searches and leaks.
Will Congress has a separate secure medical database for itself? Or be exempt?
Really ironic when one remembers that President Obama, running for the top office of the super power of the world refused to release his medical records.
(Or his original birth record, or his grades at Occidental, Columbia, and Harvard Law, not to mention he gets to keep his own special BlackBerry. Meanwhile Joe the Plumber, and anyone else is fair game. [Michael Steele's credit record anyone?])
Call me cynical.
Oh yeah -- not to mention Obama's trick about getting *sealed* divorce records opened up ...
Was that once or twice?
HARRISBURG, Pa. - A man who told his doctors that he drinks more than a six-pack of beer per day is now fighting to get his driver's license back because the physicians apparently reported him to the state.
http://www.infowars.com/print/bb/doctor_sp.htm
Guys, please.
The only people who need to be concerned are people with something to hide!
My medical history mine and it *is* "something to hide." Only *my* healthcare providers and those I choose to tell have any business knowing *anything* about my health. Sheesh!
Anonymous,
"Guys, please.
The only people who need to be concerned are people with something to hide!"
I beg to differ. As John Lennon once sang, "Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except for Me and My Monkey." Which one of the aforementioned are you?
Aslak..
"It is possible to set up the system that preserves piracy..."
Freudian?
slak,
Particularly (though not by any means peculiarly) in the United States, the scale and complexity of such mandates collapse under the weight of their own, intrinsically vast, bureaucratic mass. They swiftly devolve from promoting the "common good" to maintaining their continued existence, "common good" and privacy laws be damned.
In the U.S. it's entirely a matter of scale: population, demographics and geography. New York state alone has a larger population than Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark combined. The 90% homogeneous population of those countries plays a significant factor in social cohesion, which greatly eases the implementation of the sort of national mandate discussed here.
And, in the States, continent spanning distance and geographical diversity play almost as much a role in cultural heterogeneity -- from the Sonoran desert of Arizona to the deciduous forests of Maine -- as do the regional differences between Provence and Lapland. Social cohesion, from the beginning, has always been a balancing act in America, shored up by a shared Anglophilic, republican (little "r") ideology -- the principal thing that Maine yankees and Arizona cowboys truly do hold in common.
Mandates of this sort have been, by U.S. constitutional law (in oft abused theory, anyway) left to the individual States to decide. One size does not and cannot fit all in a nation as culturally and geographically heterogeneous as America. Although, it may seem on the surface counter-intuitive, heavy-handed federal mandates only work to strain the social cohesion of a diverse, federal constitutional republic such is the United States.
Ultimately, nearly 10 million sq. km. and 305 million people in a nation of often intensely diverse cultural outlooks equals an exponentially more difficult task for mandating ANY federal program (health care, et. al.) based on the so-called "Scandinavian model." Thus, the rightful alarm regarding privacy for any program involving personal information on this scale.
Sorry, Aslak -- the "A" got chopped off of my post there. ;)
Even if limited to government/industry function, the possibilities are disturbing.
In the UK, look up RIPA. Started as a database with seven agencies authorised to collect and share data for anti-terrorism, now hundreds of government agencies use it - for such things as levying fines against people who put out their trash the night before pickup instead of waiting for the wee hours of the morning.
In [parts of] New York City doctors enter prescriptions for diabetes into a database. Then pharmacies enter info when 'scrips are filled. A data-dredge looks for people who have not filled their prescriptions, with various penalties.
Did you have an alcoholic relative? Empployers and insurance companies will love that information.
It is coming, and I see no way to actually stop it and probably not even limit it.
Well, except for one thing. Those saying "my medical info is mine" should try to get those records in their hands: that's right, you are not allowed!
Is this even legal under the 10th Amendment?
Which of the enumerated powers of the Federal government covers this?
Not to mention the non-enumerated right to privacy.
Do you think anyone will have the deep pockets and the bulletproof background to take this to court?
You know that as soon as someone does, they will get the Joe The Plumber/Sarah Palin news coverage.
We can have a nice theoretical discussion about how worthwhile or necessary this new system is, and just what safeguards are possible. What disturbs me is that this discussion did *not* take place; this was just another section of a huge bill which was rammed through with little understanding.
And so now we get to engage in Monday morning quarterbacking, hoping that the actual implementation of this system won't be too messed up and will be amenable to fixing.
Act first, think later.
Change things, and Hope for the best.
So much for HIPAA -
Aslak - Lou pointed out exactly why you should worry - Joe the Plumber - perfect example...
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