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Congressman Paul Introduces Legislation to Repeal
Federal Medical Privacy Rule
May 1, 2001
On March 15, 2001 Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) introduced
House Joint Resolution (H.J. Res.) 38 to cancel implementation
of the federal medical privacy rule. The resolution
reads: "Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives
of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
That Congress disapproves the rule submitted by the
Department of Health and Human Services on December
28, 2000 (volume 65, number 250, page 82462 of the Federal
Register), relating to standards for privacy of
individually identifiable health information, and such
rule shall have no force or effect."
False Advertising?
In announcing his resolution, Paul said, "Many things
in Washington are misnamed; however, this regulation may
be the most blatant case of false advertising I have come
across in all my years in Congress. Rather than protect
an individual right to medical privacy, these regulations
empower government officials to determine how much medical
privacy an individual `needs.'" He continued, "This `one-size-fits-all'
approach ignores the fact that different people may prefer
different levels of privacy. Certain individuals may be
willing to exchange a great deal of their personal medical
information in order to obtain certain benefits, such
as lower-priced care or having information targeted to
their medical needs sent to them in a timely manner. Others
may forgo those benefits in order to limit the number
of people who have access to their medical history. Federal
bureaucrats cannot possibly know, much less meet, the
optimal level of privacy for each individual."
Violation of Fourth Amendment
Paul also stressed that the so-called medical privacy
regulations actually threaten constitutionally protected
liberties. "For example, these regulations allow law enforcement
and other government officials access to a citizen's private
medical record without having to obtain a search warrant,"
he said. "Allowing government officials to access a private
person's medical records without a warrant is a violation
of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution,
which protects American citizens from warrantless searches
by government officials. The requirement that law enforcement
officials obtain a warrant from a judge before searching
private documents is one of the fundamental protections
against abuse of the government's power to seize an individual's
private documents." Since House Joint Resolution 38 was
filed under the Congressional Review Act, Congress has
until June 15, 2001 to repeal the federal medical privacy
rule.
Click here to read the federal
medical privacy rule published in the Federal Register
on December 28, 2000. This federal rule took effect April
14, 2001; health-care institutions and providers have
several years to come into compliance with the rule.
This article was originally published in the March/April
2001 issue of Health
Freedom Watch. |
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"Allowing government officials to access a private
person's medical records without a warrant is a
violation of the Fourth Amendment to the United
States Constitution..." |
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