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HHS Rules Promote Medical 'Piracy'
Josey1
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Congressman Says HHS Rules Promote Medical 'Piracy'
Jeff Johnson, CNSNews.com
Tuesday, Aug. 20, 2002
Capitol Hill - A senior Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee plans to introduce legislation next month to block new federal rules he says would eliminate patient privacy in America.
Rep. Edward Markey plans to introduce the "Do Not Use My Medical Information for Marketing Act," to countermand new policies of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) set to take effect Oct. 15. The Massachusetts Democrat says the proposed change to federal medical privacy rules "shreds a patient's right to consent."
"This misguided proposal turns the final medical records privacy rule into a medical records piracy rule," Markey wrote in April, before the changes had been adopted. "The American public deserves the strongest health information privacy protections possible."
HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson had a much different take on the regulations when he announced them Friday.
"Patients now will have a strong foundation of federal protections for the personal medical information that they share with their doctors, hospitals and others who provide their care and help pay for it," he said.
"The rule protects the confidentiality of Americans' medical records without creating new barriers to receiving quality health care," Thompson continued. "It strikes a commonsense balance by providing consumers with personal privacy protections and access to high quality care."
The new rules reverse regulations that went into effect in April of 2001 requiring that health care providers and other associated parties subject to federal jurisdiction obtain a patient's consent prior to releasing their medical information to anyone for any reason other than an emergency.
Thompson says the changes were necessary to improve the efficiency of health care delivery.
"The prior regulation, while well-intentioned, would have forced sick or injured patients to run all around town getting signatures before they could get care or medicine," he claimed. "This regulation gives patients the power to protect their privacy and still get efficient health care."
Opponents believe the efficiency issue is a "red herring."
"Dispensing with the need to obtain a warrant would be much more efficient for the police and law enforcement if they could just roar into your house anytime they wanted and search," said Jim Pyles, an attorney for the American Psychoanalytic Association. "But under our Constitution, they're not allowed to do it without either your consent or some sort of good cause identified in a warrant to waive that."
The new rules are, in Pyles' estimation, taking the right to consent or not away from patients.
'Blanket Permission'
"The federal government is, essentially, stepping in and providing consent or permission on your behalf, regardless of your wishes," he said. "Even if you don't want the information to go out, this is a blanket regulatory permission."
Pyles spoke at a briefing Friday for House staff members and other interested parties sponsored by Markey's office.
"What could be more intrusive in the doctor-patient relationship than the federal government stepping in between and saying, 'Regardless of what the doctor says, regardless of what the patient says, this information is going out'?" he asked rhetorically.
HHS estimates that some 600,000 physicians, pharmacists, hospitals, mental health workers and other "covered entities" - including insurance companies, health maintenance organizations, pharmacy benefit managers, and "business associates" of those entities - would have access to personally-identifiable medical information.
Pyles warned that the amended rules would also apply retroactively. Any information provided under an assumption of privacy prior to the mandatory compliance date of April 2003 would become available at that time.
The new rules provide that private medical information must be shared without a patient's knowledge or consent if it is needed for:
Providing health care treatment and services;
Paying for such services;
Facilitating "health care operations; or
Law enforcement, public health, or oversight purposes.
It is the third category that concerns Pyles.
"Many of these purposes, particularly health care operations activities, are related to the business operations of covered entities rather than the need to provide health care to an individual," he argued.
"Health care operations" include marketing alternative treatments to patients; determining eligibility for, and costs of insurance coverage; the sale, transfer, or merger of the entity possessing the medical records; and fundraising among others.
Pyles said physicians, pharmacists, and hospitals would be hurt only a little less than patients by the regulations.
"They are the repositories of the identifiable health information. Those are the folks who are going to be inundated with demands for information that previously was protected," he explained. "There is just going to be a wholesale mining of those medical records by clearinghouses, health plans, [and] HMOs."
Another concern is that the rules leave patients with no individual legal recourse should they believe their information has been improperly disclosed. Complaints can be filed with HHS, but lawsuits are forbidden by the rules.
"When you have no ammunition, you can't shoot," Pyles said, noting that the amended rules allow covered entities to share information freely, but have no tracking requirements. "There's no way to enforce this rule."
Markey will introduce his proposal to block enactment of the amendments when the House returns from the August recess. Markey's bill is co-sponsored by Rep. George Miller, D-Calif. Kristen Kulinowski, congressional science fellow in Markey's office said Markey expects "broad bipartisan support" for the bill.
Pyles noted that all of the members of the House and two-thirds of U.S. Senators are up for re-election in less than two months.
"We would hope that every person running to represent the folks of this country would be asked the simple question," he concluded. "Do you believe the citizens of this country should have the right to consent for the use and disclosure of their health information?"
Copyright CNSNews.com
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/8/20/70528.shtml
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
Jeff Johnson, CNSNews.com
Tuesday, Aug. 20, 2002
Capitol Hill - A senior Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee plans to introduce legislation next month to block new federal rules he says would eliminate patient privacy in America.
Rep. Edward Markey plans to introduce the "Do Not Use My Medical Information for Marketing Act," to countermand new policies of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) set to take effect Oct. 15. The Massachusetts Democrat says the proposed change to federal medical privacy rules "shreds a patient's right to consent."
"This misguided proposal turns the final medical records privacy rule into a medical records piracy rule," Markey wrote in April, before the changes had been adopted. "The American public deserves the strongest health information privacy protections possible."
HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson had a much different take on the regulations when he announced them Friday.
"Patients now will have a strong foundation of federal protections for the personal medical information that they share with their doctors, hospitals and others who provide their care and help pay for it," he said.
"The rule protects the confidentiality of Americans' medical records without creating new barriers to receiving quality health care," Thompson continued. "It strikes a commonsense balance by providing consumers with personal privacy protections and access to high quality care."
The new rules reverse regulations that went into effect in April of 2001 requiring that health care providers and other associated parties subject to federal jurisdiction obtain a patient's consent prior to releasing their medical information to anyone for any reason other than an emergency.
Thompson says the changes were necessary to improve the efficiency of health care delivery.
"The prior regulation, while well-intentioned, would have forced sick or injured patients to run all around town getting signatures before they could get care or medicine," he claimed. "This regulation gives patients the power to protect their privacy and still get efficient health care."
Opponents believe the efficiency issue is a "red herring."
"Dispensing with the need to obtain a warrant would be much more efficient for the police and law enforcement if they could just roar into your house anytime they wanted and search," said Jim Pyles, an attorney for the American Psychoanalytic Association. "But under our Constitution, they're not allowed to do it without either your consent or some sort of good cause identified in a warrant to waive that."
The new rules are, in Pyles' estimation, taking the right to consent or not away from patients.
'Blanket Permission'
"The federal government is, essentially, stepping in and providing consent or permission on your behalf, regardless of your wishes," he said. "Even if you don't want the information to go out, this is a blanket regulatory permission."
Pyles spoke at a briefing Friday for House staff members and other interested parties sponsored by Markey's office.
"What could be more intrusive in the doctor-patient relationship than the federal government stepping in between and saying, 'Regardless of what the doctor says, regardless of what the patient says, this information is going out'?" he asked rhetorically.
HHS estimates that some 600,000 physicians, pharmacists, hospitals, mental health workers and other "covered entities" - including insurance companies, health maintenance organizations, pharmacy benefit managers, and "business associates" of those entities - would have access to personally-identifiable medical information.
Pyles warned that the amended rules would also apply retroactively. Any information provided under an assumption of privacy prior to the mandatory compliance date of April 2003 would become available at that time.
The new rules provide that private medical information must be shared without a patient's knowledge or consent if it is needed for:
Providing health care treatment and services;
Paying for such services;
Facilitating "health care operations; or
Law enforcement, public health, or oversight purposes.
It is the third category that concerns Pyles.
"Many of these purposes, particularly health care operations activities, are related to the business operations of covered entities rather than the need to provide health care to an individual," he argued.
"Health care operations" include marketing alternative treatments to patients; determining eligibility for, and costs of insurance coverage; the sale, transfer, or merger of the entity possessing the medical records; and fundraising among others.
Pyles said physicians, pharmacists, and hospitals would be hurt only a little less than patients by the regulations.
"They are the repositories of the identifiable health information. Those are the folks who are going to be inundated with demands for information that previously was protected," he explained. "There is just going to be a wholesale mining of those medical records by clearinghouses, health plans, [and] HMOs."
Another concern is that the rules leave patients with no individual legal recourse should they believe their information has been improperly disclosed. Complaints can be filed with HHS, but lawsuits are forbidden by the rules.
"When you have no ammunition, you can't shoot," Pyles said, noting that the amended rules allow covered entities to share information freely, but have no tracking requirements. "There's no way to enforce this rule."
Markey will introduce his proposal to block enactment of the amendments when the House returns from the August recess. Markey's bill is co-sponsored by Rep. George Miller, D-Calif. Kristen Kulinowski, congressional science fellow in Markey's office said Markey expects "broad bipartisan support" for the bill.
Pyles noted that all of the members of the House and two-thirds of U.S. Senators are up for re-election in less than two months.
"We would hope that every person running to represent the folks of this country would be asked the simple question," he concluded. "Do you believe the citizens of this country should have the right to consent for the use and disclosure of their health information?"
Copyright CNSNews.com
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/8/20/70528.shtml
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
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August 21, 2002
BY FRANK MAIN CRIME REPORTER
In the late 1980s, Dr. Gary Slutkin was at the forefront of the fight against AIDS in Africa. He later worked to eradicate a tuberculosis outbreak in San Francisco. Now he's attacking gun crime in Chicago as a disease.
In 1995, Slutkin founded the Chicago Project for Violence Prevention, which aims to prevent shootings in 10 neighborhoods. He said its strategy--declaring neighborhoods "CeaseFire" zones and putting outreach workers in the violence-plagued areas--works.
"We're changing the thought process that killing is OK," he said.
Slutkin, a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, said shootings have dropped between 30 percent and 67 percent in the first neighborhoods with CeaseFire zones.
In part of West Garfield Park, shootings fell from 43 in 1999 to 14 for each of the last two years.
The biggest change in the first six months of 2002 was in part of West Humboldt Park, which had 13 shootings compared with 37 in the same period last year.
CeaseFire works like programs that battle AIDS and other epidemics, Slutkin said. Outreach workers are recruited from the targeted population; a massive public education campaign is launched, and the focus is on a single problem--shootings. Neighborhoods have been blanketed with CeaseFire literature, which warns of stiff jail terms for gun crimes and gives program phone numbers.
Outreach workers, some of them ex-gang members, meet with people on the streets, day and night, urging them to call when they need help to prevent a shooting.
Tio Hardiman, a CeaseFire community coordinator, said a 13-year-old girl was shot and wounded in June in the Austin neighborhood. People were talking about retaliation. "We actively kept more shootings from happening," he said.
About two weeks ago CeaseFire workers heard of a plot to rob a man of his $30,000 chain. They foiled the holdup, Hardiman said.
CeaseFire workers help crime victims with funeral services or relocation. They even appear in court on behalf of defendants.
"We have a case where a guy got probation--instead of 11 years," said Norman Livingston Kerr, director of CeaseFire. "He was on a positive track."
One of the biggest drops in shootings was in the West Side's 11th police district.
"Eleven used to lead the pack," said James Maurer, chief of patrol. "But now, 11 doesn't have any of the 20 worst police beats in the city. [CeaseFire] is contributing greatly to this."
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) helped secure $450,000 in federal funds for the group for fiscal year 2003 on top of $750,000 in 2002.
"It is a really comprehensive approach to deal with the violence in the community," said Durbin, who plans to speak about the program today in Logan Square.
http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-cease21.html
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878