Stimulus Law Does Not Require All Americans to Enter Their Medical...Dems Say

CNS NEWS.com ^ | Tuesday, February 17, 2009 | Josiah Ryan

[Cindy]

(CNSNews.com) – Two top House Democrats told CNSNews.com on Friday that a section in the $787-billion economic stimulus bill that requires the creation of “electronic health records for each person in the United States by 2014” does not mean that the medical records of every American must be included in the new national infrastructure.

In the bill, which passed both chambers of Congress on Friday and which President Obama is scheduled to sign Tuesday, $3 billion is allocated for a “National Coordinator for Health Information Technology” to create and meet the objectives of a strategic plan to build a national infrastructure of “electronic health records for each person in the United States by 2014.”

House Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and House Health Subcommittee Chairman Frank Pallone Jr. (D-N.J.) both told CNSNews.com on Friday that they do not think the law mandates that every American’s health care records must be entered into the national system.

“You mean that everyone has to be in the database?” Pallone said when CNSNews.com asked him if the provision was mandatory. “I don’t think so.”

“My understanding of what we are talking about is that this is information that you use with your own doctor for your own purposes,” said Pallone. “I don’t think there is any requirement you be in some national database either totally, either collectively or with individual data that you might want to provide.”

When asked whether there was a provision in the bill that allowed Americans to keep their records out of the program, Waxman said, "Yes."

[Cindy]

Note: Read the whole article.

Anyone who voted for the "stimulus" package but doesn't know what's in the "stimulus" package are today's STUCK ON STUPID award winners.

[marsh2]

Comments from my Congressman Wally Herger, Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Health on the House Ways & Means Committee:

- Mr. Speaker, we just voted on this so-called stimulus that wasn’t even available to us until late last night. It should come as no surprise that in this monumental piece of legislation there are items in that could not have survived careful scrutiny in the light of day.

Many of my colleagues have pointed out the wildly extravagant spending and the lack of real job creation and economic recovery in this bill. I fully share those concerns, but I also want to call attention to a little-known provision tucked into 6 pages, deep inside this 1,100 page bill.

The Democrats are spending $1.1 billion on a new federal board to conduct health care research. Sounds innocent enough, right? Unfortunately, this provision is the camel’s nose under the tent in the Democrat’s quest to have the federal government push doctors aside, and put Washington in charge of patient’s health treatment options.

This board, the Federal Coordinating Council on Comparative Effectiveness Research, will be comprised of 15 federal bureaucrats, all appointed by the President. Not a single practicing physician or patient advocate will be allowed to sit on this board.

Mr. Speaker, this is the first step of government-run health care. Despite numerous requests from patient groups, this bill does not include a single protection to ensure that this research will not be used by Medicare, Medicaid, VA, DoD, or private health insurance to deny access to needed treatments. This goal of this board is to conduct research that will allow the federal government to deny needed health care. Physician groups are very concerned that this board and its research will significantly harm the patient-doctor relationship.

Other governments have been using this research to deny medically necessary care for years. The British government currently uses similar research to restrict treatment using a formula that divides the cost of the treatment by the number of years the patient is likely to live. Treatments for younger patients are more often approved than treatments for diseases that affect the elderly.

For example, in 2006, the British government used comparative effectiveness research to say that elderly patients with macular degeneration had to wait until they went blind in one eye before they could get a new drug to save the other eye. It took almost 3 years of public protests before the board reversed its decision. Americans expect better and deserve more.

Physicians and patients, not faceless federal bureaucrats, should be in charge of health care decisions. Republicans will continue to fight to keep the federal government out of our American’s medicine cabinets.

In the very near future, I will be introducing legislation to protect patients from the misuse of comparative effectiveness research and ensure that seniors continue to have access to medically necessary treatments. I urge every member of this House to join me in this effort.

[ketelone]

If prezzie Obammy is going to pay for strippers for all, now THAT is a REAL STIMULUS. I’d be stimulated.

[blueplum]

Meanwhile, members of the Senate told CNSNews.com that they were unaware of these health-care provisions included in the 1,071-page legislation.

well, pardners, mebe ya'll better mosey on over to Free Republic and get you some edu-mication on the matter - Quick!

[Diogenesis]

The ONLY purpose the govt wants everyone's medical records
is to sort, separate, and segregate either for removal
of health care, or removal from the general population.

President Obama's (and Orwell's) America, February, 2009

Medical Records Held by the State is Privacy
Rationing Healthcare Creates Jobs
Better Healthcare for US Officials is Wonderful
Censorship is Transparency
Censoring Opposing Views is Fairness (Doctrine)
Four Score Missing Nuclear Weapons Computers is Security
A Two-tiered Tax System favoring Politicians is Fair
Eliminating US Military Capacity is Increasing Strength
Freed, Armed Terrorists Make for Improved American Safety
War is Peace (*)
Freedom is Slavery (*)
Ignorance is Strength (*)

[ * from 1984, Orwell; rest instituted by President Obama ]

[Enterprise]

I didn’t think that the stimulus was going to require that Americans put their records in a data base. If I remember correctly, it would require that the DOCTORS put the information in the base, and would punish THEM if they didn’t!

[Son House]

Presidents and Congress are exempt from the laws they pass on the rest

[thecabal]

Correct, it’s all word games with these fecking weasels. No big surprise considering that the upper echelon of our government consists almost exclusively of lawyers.

[Enterprise]

Exactly. Although I thought they were fracking weasels instead of fecking weasels. No matter. Sure, they can say that Americans don’t have to enter their records. The Doctors will have the office personnel enter the records. Bottom line, the medical records WILL be entered into a national data base.

[Fresh Wind]

If you take health care money from the government (Obamacare, Medicare), then you will be required to hand your records over to the government.

“Free” federal money always has strings attached.

[mikey_hates_everything]

“You mean that everyone has to be in the database?” Pallone said when CNSNews.com asked him if the provision was mandatory. “I don’t think so.”

Is this like when Harry Reid said that income taxes are voluntary?

[mylife]

Great. These yuckapuks dont even know what they have done

[Kadric]

I really don’t mind mine being listed right after every Dem or Rep that had anything to do with this. Obama first and he must submit everything including medical records of his birth.

[jedi150]

#@!! I have been trying to give my records to SSA on a claim and they keep disappearing for some UNKNOWN reason! Only the one that helps them deny me seems to keep showing up. Anyone know a good disability Lawyer that handles International claims?

Guess I am on the list that they will deem time to die.

[mylife]

:( I am sorry to hear that you have been caught in the machine.

I wish I had advice.

[ballplayer]

They dont THINK !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
What AHoles

[mylife]

Get real copys of your records in your hot little hands.

[jedi150]

Got them already. Have to FOIA my SSDI claim records as they will not supply them when I asked them. By mail! I can see the writing on the wall when the Gov. gets control of the Health system in this country. 2 to 5 years to get a Judge to look at your Medical history and then decide if you should die or not. OH BROTHER.

[mylife]

Lord help us

[jedi150]

Yep.