HIPAA
Perverted Privacy And Other Assaults Upon Our Civil Liberties
by
Norma Sherry
If
you or a loved one has been in the hospital or to your doctor lately,
undoubtedly, you have become familiar with the new HIPAA regulations.
The regulations that disallow nurses to answer even the simplest of
queries, such as, "can you tell me what room my husband is in?"
Apparently, we have become so paranoid, so protective of our privacy,
that we have legislated secrecy gone amuck.
HIPAA's
way was paved when Congress adopted a new set of rules in 1996 that
set the stage for some of the most sweeping changes in health care
since the passage of the Medicare Acts. In part, these changes
included the protection of patient identifiable data including, but
not limited to, the patient's name, their address, phone number,
their sex, date of birth, or their diagnosis. No one, not even a
family member is excluded from these restrictions unless otherwise
cleared by the patient - usually in writing.
If
you are a first-time patient with a new doctor and that doctor writes
you a prescription, in which you would prefer be called in to your
pharmacy - guess what? The doctor will respectfully decline. Not
because he or she is being mean, but because their hands have been
dutifully tied by HIPAA. If you're a new patient, you must have a
written script. Call-in scripts are not permitted. Once you have an
ongoing physician/patient relationship this no longer holds true. The
reasoning behind this is befuddling.
As
incongruous, as it may seem, on one hand, we seem willing to permit
such undue protection of our privacy, and yet, on the other hand, we
appear to be willing to allow the perverse and continuing assault upon
our precious civil liberties.
Even
as I write this, our president aired commercials and made speeches on
the importance of preserving the USA Patriot Act. Apparently, he was
very effective because the USA Patriot Act, that same law that made
citizens the object of national concern, has an excellent chance of
being re-upped in Congress. President Bush has used the anniversary of
the deadly attack on September 11th to put his policy forth
to the citizenry. He and his spokespeople use the same scare tactics
and threatening rhetoric to convince the gullible, the misinformed,
the unread public, that in order to fight terrorism we all have to be
willing to give up some of our rights. What he neglects to say is that
according to President Bush, we the people no longer have inalienable
rights. Furthermore, if he has anything to do with it, we never will
again.
In
a speech to the FBI, in
Quantico
,
Virginia
, President Bush recently said, "Under current federal law, there
are unreasonable obstacles to investigating and prosecuting
terrorism." He recommended the need to allow authorities in
terrorist investigations to issue subpoenas without going to judges or
grand juries, to make it easier to hold terrorism suspects without
bail, and to add more death penalty statutes. The problem with this
folks is the ease in which any of us could be considered an object of
terrorist investigation. You may think that's a silly and a "liberal"
point of view, but we now have a glut of proof that supports that
contention. All one needs to do is read, but you'll have to go
beyond the bought and paid for press. Try doing a search online. You
may be regretfully informed.
You
may remember last February through August, John Ashcroft made a
whirlwind tour of the
United States
touting the importance and need of the US Patriot Act. His job and his
intent were to prepare the public for tougher new laws assaulting our
civil liberties. Eloquently he proclaimed the ongoing fear and threat
to
America
and its citizens. For all intents and purposes, he fulfilled his role
well. The citizens that blindly back this president and his cabinet no
matter what applauded loudly and in so doing voiced their undying
support. Detractors and voices of citizens on the other side of that
preverbal coin were held in abeyance, far from view and further from
being heard. But this is the new
America
. The
America
in only those who agree are seen and heard. Scary and frightening as
this may seem to many of you, the consequences of our voices not being
heard or seen by our fellow Americans has the potential of changing
America in ways we never believed possible.
Unabashedly,
our president and many from both sides of the congressional fence tout
the horrors of 911 and remind us of the "evil doers" that wish to
destroy our way of life. This administration uses this national
assault to bolster its deeds and misdeeds in the name of security.
Wide-eyed and clear-throated we were told in no uncertain terms of the
proof that
Iraq
had weapons of mass-destruction. Even now in the face of the truth,
President Bush said on July 9th to a throng of supporters
that we just haven't found the WMD yet. Besides, he said, we know
that Saddam Hussein had the capability to make WMD. He neglects to
state he knows this because we, the
United States
government, sold him the goods that would have enabled him to do so.
But, that's not important now, is it?
Just
weeks after 911 President Bush succeeded in getting the USA Patriot
Act signed into law. It wasn't until many months later we learned
that not a single senator or congressman read the Act before signing
it into law. Afterwards, many of their voices, including
ultra-conservative leaders, Bob Barr and Dick Armey, loudly proclaimed
their regret in doing so. Since then we heard Senator John Conyers, a
strong distracter of the actions of this administration, state that we
are foolish if we think our representatives read anything that comes
their way. It's impossible he says, otherwise they'd get nothing
done. Perhaps, prudence would be the greater part of valor. How better
served might we be if our elected officials actually read all the
pertinent documents before they voted on enacting law that would
affect their constituency: us.
Perhaps,
my fellow Americans, it is time that we the people send a loud and
resounding message to all of our current representatives. I wonder
what we might achieve if we replaced the entire lot of them with
accountable representation? As we all know, the days are growing
shorter before we are faced with the opportunity to make our voices
heard. We need to go into that booth armed with knowledge, not
rhetoric. It is time for each and every one of us to be responsible
citizens and for each of us to do the right thing and vote our
conscience, intelligently.
�"
Norma Sherry 2004
Norma Sherry is co-founder of TogetherForeverChanging.org, an organization devoted to educating, stimulating, and igniting personal responsibility particularly with regards to our diminishing civil liberties. She is also an award-winning writer/producer and host of television program, The Norma Sherry Show, on WQXT-TV , Florida .
Email Norma: norma@togetherforeverchanging.org
