you big dufuss
wackos like you
the dork you are
Since you seem to have some understanding of this, I think that Haiku is beneath you.
Everyone, just how safe do you feel when you get "privacy notices" that say "we do not release any personal information except as permitted by law?" Not safe.
I do not think that some understand the privacy regulations contained in HIPAA, because if they did they would not be defending any aspect of it, including the recent "adjustments." Moreover, just because you think that any individual can somehow by taking uncommon actions avoid losing his or her privacy is no reason to advocate ill-advised and illegal federal programs that will in fact hurt the privacy of most of the population.
HIPAA was permitted to pass by a pathetic REPUBLICAN Congress simply because RINO Bob Dole did not want RINO Nancy Kassebaum to retire without ever having done one proactive thing in her career. It's a classic example of a bill too big to be understood by Congress critters. Few even read the bill, as usual. It handed a huge victory to HillaryCare advocates. We thought we won in 1994, and then let down our guard and so were sabotaged by Bob Dole and his ilk.
Moreover, in its implementation Congress specified (illegally abdicating its job to make the laws) that if Congress had not written HIPAA privacy details by a certain date that they would let the regulations be written by none other than Donna Shalala, the woman who once cluelessly confused cirrhosis and psoriasis, and her bureaucratic minions. The Republicans then IRRESPONSIBLY sat on their hands until the deadline passed so the Democrats got to craft the details!
HIPAA therefore represents a disgusting and traitorous (to true Republicans) and wholesale surrender by the Republicans to the Democrats. Loyal Republicans who are not RINOs are therefore very much upset by HIPAA and see nothing good about it, and your defense of it is therefore remarkable.
The fact of the matter is that Electronic Medical Records were not the true impetus for the HIPAA "privacy" regs -- just the opposite. Electronic Medical Records are what finally make wholesale massive privacy invasion possible for the government and its little fascist allies like RAND. The removal of explicit permissions is exactly what they have been after all along because they want to mine the information. The HIPAA act itself STANDARDIZES all electronic healthcare transactions (as to transmission protocols) and therefore makes it much more likely that privacy violations can occur on a massive scale. Moreover, it virtually REQUIRES electronic medical records because it is too hard to comply with many of the provisions without them. And the more electronic records there are, the easier they are to steal. Therefore it meets the classic MO of the Clintonistas:
(1) decide what freedoms you want to limit in order to gain power,
(2) pick a method for stopping the freedoms which can be named something exactly the opposite of what is actually happening (steal medical privacy by using a "privacy protection act"),
(3) write regulations that will cause a massive outpouring of protest by conservatives who were not fooled in the first place,
(4) read the protests and deduce from them the methods by which the opposition will plan to get around those rules,
(5) ignore the protests but re-write the regulations to route around the conservative opposition and be even more onerous and self-sustaining,
(6) IMMEDIATELY upon implementation make sure that you steal the gold--make sure that many corporations like RAND, in the name of "research," steal all the information and do all the damage they can, and even ship the information offshore; and when the Republicans finally wake up most of the genie will be out of the bottle forever even if they repeal HIPAA.
So now they get the final piece of what they want. Instead of an unworkable act that would be repealed promptly due to its unworkability, they now get even more permission to export and mine personal medical information combined with a de facto packaging of that information into electronic records systems which are required to communicate using a standardized health information transfer protocol. A perfect setup for the government medical complex / Big Brother.
HIPAA needs to be completely repealed right now. Maybe the frustrating and idiotic parts will help assure its repeal sooner. People who are willing to fight and pay cash for medical care (which actually will only help if the physician is not a "covered entity" on HIPAA) in the name of privacy should not be advocating "sugar coating" of HIPAA to make it more palatable to either patients or the medical care community, because that will only permit HIPAA to become more firmly entrenched.
Your analysis is strong, with the exception that you missed the economic reasons for their behavior. I can summarize it best by simply saying "Oracle".
WilliamWallace1999, you made a little Haiku with your attacks on Action-America that you apparently think are necessary in order to make your point:
Thanks for chiming in. Your detailed post made some excellent points. As a follow-up, you might also want to check out my response to WW1999, at post 157. Note that the version of HIPPA that passed, was the brainchild of, and largely supported by, Republicans.
You expect liberals to post things without checking the facts, but it is very disappointing to see that occurring more and more often with supposed conservatives.