The HIPAA travesty redefined -- and then ended -- privacy for all of us.
Sure, our medical records will be confidential, insofar as release to entities like our spouses, or specialists we're seeing are concerned. We have to sign forms, releases, and grant "permission" for those folks to have access to our medical records.
However, any government employee, for any reason, can merely request them, and there they are.
It's not limited to government employees, though. Students doing reports, and no end of commercial interests can have access to your records, without your permission. In fact, you are prohibited from denying them access.
Typical orwellian incrementalism. Call it a "privacy act", and then use it to remove privacy act -- and finally, cloak the deception in a massive</> HIPAA "privacy document" you're offered to read before signing.
And of course, don't bother telling the mark that what he's signing is NOT "permission" to allow those entities access to his records. Nope, if you read the fine print, you will see that the ONLY thing you are signing is an acknowledgment that you have been offered a chance to read the massive document.
Cute, eh?
But, millions of Americans think it's "privacy reform", and, they honestly believe they're signing something completely contrary to what they're actually signing.
BTW, it was Bush who gave us HIPAA.
HIPAA sucks! I was offered a chance to sign it when I went to an osteopath last year for a little back crack. Of course refusing to sign it would mean no treatment. No fault of the doc's either. If he didn't get my John Henry his ass would be in a sling.
Interesting. I did not know that about HIPAA.