[john mirse]

honestly don't know--it's a complicated and far-reaching law. I do know that Obama made a written request to the DOH to release two copies to his lawyer. A summary of HIPAA says, "All authorizations must be in plain language, and contain specific information regarding the information to be disclosed or used, the person(s) disclosing and receiving the information, expiration, right to revoke in writing, and other data." It sounds like each individual release requires a separate authorization with all that detail. If Hawaii's law is anything like that, obviously Obama isn't going to write an authorization for every single person that wants to look at his records.

******

Why are you applying HIPAA rules to explain why or why not Hawaii can allow reporters to examine Obama's long form birth certificate? The federal HIPAA medical privacy law has absolutely nothing to do with how Hawaii, or any other state, applies its privacy laws concerning its documents. You are comparing apples to oranges.

HIPAA, the federal privacy law covering medical records, has nothing to do with how a state controls or releases such documents like birth certificates, death data, and marriage information.

Again, you are comparing apples to oranges when you compare Hawaii privacy laws to federal HIPAA medical privacy laws, because each state has its own laws as to who can see a person's birth certificate, while federal HIPAA medical privacy laws apply to all 57 states the same.

[Ha Ha Thats Very Logical]

Why are you applying HIPAA rules to explain why or why not Hawaii can allow reporters to examine Obama's long form birth certificate?

Only because I started with an analogy. You asked, "Didn't President Obama give up his right to claim protection from privacy laws that apply to his long form birth certificate when he released a copy of his long form on April 27, 2011?" I replied with an analogy about medical records, saying that even though the subject of a record protected by privacy laws chooses to reveal the contents of the record, that doesn't nullify the laws' burdens on the record holder. I did not mean to suggest that HIPAA governed the release of Obama's BC information.

You're right, I shouldn't have quoted anything about HIPAA--I got caught up following my own analogy further than it applies. It looks like the relevant Hawaii statute is here. There's nothing in it about the registrant waiving the requirements.