Who are you? Can you prove it?

[Clodfobble]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

They'll start with babies. Convince parents that they need it for protection from everything... kidnapping to wrong prescriptions to mistaken identity.

So, would now be a good time to mention that Texas has a relatively new statewide database tracking kids' immunization records from birth through teens? You can still choose not to have your kid entered in it, for what that's worth.

[capnhowdy]

Even if (or when) the chip thingie becomes mandatory, it won't take a mastermind to perfect an alternate/deactivate technique. For every ping there is a pong.

I already have a chip on my shoulder.... don't need one under my skin.

[Flint]

High court won't hear privacy case

The Supreme Court yesterday declined to hear a case filed by privacy rights groups aimed at reversing a 2003 amendment to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act that gives providers -- and not necessarily the patient or family members -- the go-ahead to release routine patient data.

Deborah Peel, an Austin, Texas, psychiatrist, chairwoman of the Patient Privacy Rights Foundation and a central figure in the court case, said that the HIPAA provision effectively eliminates people's control of consent.

The HIPAA rule allows physicians, hospitals and pharmacies to sidestep the patient's consent to use or disclose information for routine uses. Under the rule, that disclosure must be limited to the "minimum necessary" information to accomplish the intended purpose.

Healthcare providers said that the consent rule would handcuff them to provide timely and efficient medical services, the Associated Press reported.

Under a provision in the federal law, individuals have the right to request restrictions on personal medical data, but those requests take time and often come back rejected, Peel said.

The psychologist's involvement in the privacy movement is equal parts personal and professional. As a psychoanalyst, Peel said that privacy is "absolutely essential" in the treatment of her patients. "Like surgeons need a sterile field, we need privacy," she said.

But it was also her involvement in the care of a family member that propelled her into action. Peel said she had written to two national pharmaceutical chains requesting restrictions put on family member's medical records, but that in each case, the chains took weeks before they ultimately denied her request.

The experience, she said, helped to frame her legal argument. "Our position is: How do you have a right to privacy if you have to beg another party to exercise it?"she said. "If I have to beg someone to exercise my right, then I don't have a right."

The lawsuit, which was filed by the Patient Privacy Rights Foundation and nine other groups that represented some 750,000 patients, doctors and consumers, also claimed that federal agencies didn't follow the necessary procedures to change or amend the HIPAA rule.

In a decision the privacy advocates had sought to reverse, the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said that any privacy violations could not be properly blamed on the government, the AP reported.

"They've given the power to eliminate our privacy to private corporations," Peel said.

Matthew DoBias / HITS staff writer

[xoxoxoBruce]

So if I give you a beer and you get in your car and kill somebody, I'm responsible.
But the feds give the physicians, hospitals and pharmacies (for the convenience of the Insurance Companies), the whole damn brewery, then claim they're clean?
Dickheads.