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The Clinton version of the proposal, which was never put into effect, would have required signed consent forms from patients even for routine matters such as billing statements to insurance providers.

The notion that sick patients would have to drive all over town for signatures is a lie.

If consent is needed, it is legal to fax one's signed form; and, I believe, an individual can waive his consent, for convenience, with an insurer, if there is some desire on the part of the patient.

The danger here, in my opinion, is that persons with STDs, depression, etc., which are charged diagnoses, will not be able to protect their privacy.

The insurers have driven up the cost of health care to such an extent that it is impractical for a patient to seek care secretly and pay for it.

This is just another needless slap in the face of individual citizens, just so scum who work for insurance company won't have to be inconvenienced.

This POTUS does not give a damn about the common man.

The danger here, in my opinion, is that persons with STDs, depression, etc., which are charged diagnoses, will not be able to protect their privacy.

Not true. The regulations, even as revised, enact stringent privacy protections. What the revisions do is drop the original requirement to get written consent to a doctor's privacy policy before the doctor can give a patient treatment. The regs still require the doctor to inform the patient what the office's privacy policy is, still require stringent protections of confidentiality. And if a patient disagrees with some aspect of the privacy policy, they can request a change for the use of their records, and the doctor must acknowledge that request in the patient's file, and follow their request.

Your objections seem to be unnecessarily hysterical, and overtly partisan.

You are mistaken regarding "waiver" of consent. In my opinion, the courts do not honor corporations or individuals who claim that another has "waived" a right without a signed document. While faxing is operationally acceptable, I am relatively certain that most tort attorneys would attack the faxed document as being unreliable and itself being a violation of the privacy rights of the plaintiff.

You are entirely correct regarding the inability to protect patients with behavioral, psychological, or chronic medical conditions.

Regarding the cost of health care, you can blame a considerable amount of the cost increase in healthcare on a variety of factors:
* Increase in cost of medical facilities due to Americans with Disability Act, California Earthquake codes, and NCQA guidelines
* Increase in technology needed to effectively diagnose and treat patients
* Increase in drug costs (due to the litigious nature of tort attorneys who keep suing innovative pharmaceutical or technology companies)
* Skyrocketing malpractice premiums.

The patient has full control over who gets what information now. However, b/c there is a third party paying for the bills incurred by the patient, the third party needs information to pay. To have patients conveniently sign forms and have them faxed is done now. But when the patient is needed for more information that the insurance company needs, and if the patient does not respond, then we can't give the info to the third party.

You need however free ability to care for a patient when they are sick. I am sure that when the patient comes in to one hospital in a coma and we know that a MRI was done in another hospital that it would be quite silly not to be able to get the MRI results b/c the patient could not sign. In the medical care of the patient, there are appropriate times when sharing of medical information is imperative.

In my opinion, I don't see what the problem was that needed fixing. The government presently if they refuse to pay for a hospital visit, will ask of the physician to submit the office notes or the hospital visit notes. The government right now goes thru the hospital records to determine if payment is due or not. There are presently lots of people that can read your chart. But again, if you want a third party to pay for the bills, you got to give them that authority to tap into your charts.

And now the patient has the right to look at their charts, has the right to tell the doctor what he/she can release, and the patient has the right to tell you not to put the info in the chart.

So again, what was the problem that Clinton thought needed fixing? And why are some people angry at Bush for easing some of the tough Clintonian rules that would make the art of practicing medicine cumbersome.

In the medical world, medicare sets the precedent. If medicare does it then so do the private insurances.

The insurers have driven up the cost of health care to such an extent …

The insurers had help driving up those costs – help from the physicians and HMOs, certainly. But don’t forget those malpractice lawyers, too, and their friends in the legislatures. And lastly, they had help from the patients … those who didn’t bother to scrutinize the bills and didn’t question those increases because “someone else was paying.”

The Clinton version of the proposal, which was never put into effect

I like the way you posted this and then sited current regulations and used how appropriate the current regulations are as a way to bash Bush for not caring about the individuals. The Clinton version would no longer allow a patient to wave their signature, and would outlawed faxing or mailing copies. Bush took those ridiculous items out. If they would have stayed in, then yes you would have to drive to your doctor's office each time he/she sent you for lab or x-ray or even each time you were referred to the physical therapist etc.