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Rep. Joe Barton accused the Obama administration Friday of "running over" the privacy rights of individuals by using hidden codes in the HealthCare.gov website. "The Obama administration is hiding that they're running over your privacy rights," the Texas Republican said on Fox News' "America's Newsroom." "The law, specifically designed to protect your medical privacy, HIPAA, in my mind is being violated under this law," he added, referring to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. The Texas Republican made the same charge at Thursday's House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing on the problems with the Obamacare enrollment website, which requests...

The Weekly Standard has revealed yet another reason to mistrust the Affordable Care Act and the intentions of its authors. On October 1st, the Healthcare.gov website proudly announced that “Open Enrollment in the Health Insurance Marketplace is Here.” What the site did NOT proudly announce is the following: “You have no reasonable expectation of privacy regarding any communication or data transiting or stored on this information system. At any time, and for any lawful Government purpose, the government may monitor, intercept, and search and seize any...

Karen Santoro heard co-workers chattering about her psychological care in 2010. An Air Force veteran and surgical services scheduler at the Veterans Affairs Pittsburgh hospital in Oakland, Santoro asked officials with the VA and the Department of Health and Human Services to investigate the source of the gossip. It seemed to violate the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA, that prohibits release of medical information. SNIP A two-month Tribune-Review investigation found VA workers or contractors committed 14,215 privacy violations at 167 facilities from 2010 through May 31, victimizing at least 101,018 veterans and 551 VA employees. Photos...

HHS has given itself the flexibility to impose a different standard because the agency realized that current HIPAA-approved transaction used to communicate payment-related information will not provide the necessary information for the risk adjustment, reinsurance and risk corridors programs. Therefore, other standards are available to HHS for certain transactions, and indeed HHS adopts a non-HIPAA standard to solve the above-mentioned problem via the final rule’s preamble.[14]

The man whose name is synonymous with computer security shreds Obamacare’s web strategy. The very worst kind of identity theft is medical identity theft, but when you also combine this with all sorts of additional...

Hello FReepers. I have a doctor appointment coming up soon. When I fill out the form that asks with whom the doctor's office is allowed to share my personal health information, I want to make it quite clear that none of my personal health information is to be shared with any government agency/organization or any representative of same. Was wondering if any of you have had experience with doing this, and what you wrote on the form or told your doctor.

The official line on health care, which pervades not only the mainstream, but also much of the alternative media is this: The most important thing is that we all receive the best care, and that someone else pays for it… 1. What IS the “best care”? While what constitutes the best of anything is largely subjective, most of us agree, at least in generic terms, that certain things are better than others. Moreover, limited by our budget, we usually have the opportunity to make such choices–unencumbered by third parties. No doubt, plenty of misinformation circulates regarding whatever we are interested...

Few people realize that the HIPAA “privacy” form shoved under the nose of every individual visiting a hospital or doctor’s office has NOTHING whatever to do with the preservation of patient privacy. Nor does it mean that patient consent will be required before a provider may share their records. On the contrary, signing the form simply means the patient has been advised that his most private medical (and other) information may be legally accessed by some 2.2 million entities, many having nothing to do with either health or treatment. In 2009, the federal government modified the HIPAA “privacy rule” so...

As a Second Amendment organization representing 375,000 members, we are writing to express our concern over Health And Human Services’ (HHS) proposed rule that was printed in the April 23rd, 2013 issue of the Federal Register. These regulations would, by executive fiat, waive all federal privacy laws and encourage doctors to report their patients to the FBI. Please understand a couple of things: First, the standard which a doctor would use to turn in a patient is embodied in Clinton-era ATF language and in the anti-gun Veterans Disarmament Act of 2007. Specifically, a doctor would report a patient if he...

he Internal Revenue Service is now facing a class action lawsuit over allegations that it improperly accessed and stole the health records of some 10 million Americans, including medical records of all California state judges. According to a report by Courthousenews.com, an unnamed HIPAA-covered entity in California is suing the IRS, alleging that some 60 million medical records from 10 million patients were stolen by 15 IRS agents. The personal health information seized on March 11, 2011, included psychological counseling, gynecological counseling, sexual/drug treatment and other medical treatment data. "This is an action involving the corruption and abuse of power...

Senators Joe Manchin (R) and Pat Toomey (D) today announced a so-called "compromise" bill/amendment which they claim would increase gun safety through improving "background checks," but is in truth a flawed piece of legislation, WHICH IS WHY YOU SHOULD ACT NOW TO STOP THE MEASURE (or click here for more options). The title of their bill is Orwellian: "The Public Safety and Second Amendment Rights Protection Act." It is double-speak, as their measure infringes on the Second Amendment -- it doesn't "protect" anything. It will in fact push the U.S. towards the establishment of a national gun registry, the eventual...

Urgent action required. It is urgent that every gun owner call their Senators today and demand that they oppose the "See a Shrink, Lose your Guns" sell-out bill that is being authored by Senators Pat Toomey (R) and Joe Manchin (D) - but which also has Chuck Schumer's fingerprints all over it. Call senators immediately at 202-224-3121 and click here to send pre-written or free-form emails to senators about the Toomey/Manchin "compromise" (scroll to bottom to send).See a Shrink, Lose your Guns. The anti-gun "ranters" have spent the last week telling us that Republican Senators can't filibuster Harry Reid's gun...

Despite promises from the president and a host of other politicians who are pushing for more gun control that nobody is coming for your guns, the confiscation of guns and gun permits has apparently started in some form in New York State. One attorney representing several people who have been forced to surrender their guns spoke with TheBlaze and alerted us to some disturbing facts: Gun owners are losing their 2nd Amendment rights without due process.HIPAA Laws are likely being compromised and the 4th and 5th Amendments are being violated in some of these cases How did confiscation start happening...

CHICAGO (FOX 32 News) -For the first time, the Cook County medical examiner's office has posted photos of unclaimed bodies on their website in an effort to help identify them. The program is generating some controversy because of the graphic images, but for the sake of people missing loved ones, this is a decision where the medical examiner believes the ends justify the means.

Fact Sheet The Health Insurance Portability And Accountability Act (HIPAA) U.S. Department of Labor Employee Benefits Security Administration December 2004 The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) offers protections for millions of American workers that improve portability and continuity of health insurance coverage. HIPAA Protects Workers And Their Families By Limiting exclusions for preexisting medical conditions (known as preexisting conditions). Providing credit against maximum preexisting condition exclusion periods for prior health coverage and a process for providing certificates showing periods of prior coverage to a new group health plan or health insurance issuer. Providing new rights that allow individuals...

When it comes to health care legislation, the devil is in the details. Despite what politicians and interest groups are saying, details in current bills compromise both patient choice and medical privacy. The leading House bill (H.R. 3200), for instance, forces all Americans to buy "acceptable" health insurance. According to the bill, the federal government -- always guided by special interests -- will decide what that means. People who prefer to carry catastrophic insurance only, for instance, will lose that freedom and will be forced to buy much more comprehensive -- and expensive -- coverage for services they don't want....

THE BRIEFING ROOM • THE BLOG THE BLOG TUESDAY, AUGUST 4TH, 2009 AT 6:55 AM Facts Are Stubborn Things Posted by Macon Phillips Opponents of health insurance reform may find the truth a little inconvenient, but as our second president famously said, "facts are stubborn things." Scary chain emails and videos are starting to percolate on the internet, breathlessly claiming, for example, to "uncover" the truth about the President’s health insurance reform positions. In this video, Linda Douglass, the communications director for the White House’s Health Reform Office, addresses one example that makes it look like the President intends to...

"They" will also decide when healthcare is mandatory. A surgeon writes to Lew Rockwell: I am a surgeon in the Baltimore area. My main hospital decided to run a “Swine Flu Drill” for the employees and doctors over the last 2 days. Apparently, the general public was excluded because only hospital workers get swine flu. I am sure that the ability to coerce employees had nothing to do with it. All entrances were blocked by security and tables were set up with 3 nurses. People lined up and answered embarassing private questions regarding bowel habits and the like. They then...

A registered nurse in Durham, N.H., has filed a civil suit against three officials of the Obama Administration alleging the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act's health information technology provisions unconstitutionally violate the HIPAA privacy rule, Privacy Act and Federal Common Law.

A push to require all convicted criminals in New York to submit their DNA to a central database is gaining crucial support in Albany, where officials say it could create the most comprehensive DNA collection system in the nation. If the proposal becomes law, it would make New York the only state to require collecting DNA from everyone convicted of felonies and misdemeanors, including youthful offenders convicted in criminal court, officials said. Currently, 43 states require that people convicted of all felonies submit DNA, but none require samples from those convicted of all misdemeanors, and New York has required those...