Posted on 12/16/2002 11:20:02 AM PST by RonPaulLives
Nunn And Mongiardo Are At It Again, Another Bad ‘Health’ Bill
State Representative Steve Nunn (R-Glasgow) has prefiled (BR 107) another massive, expensive, and intrusive so-called health bill. The purpose of this bill is to do away with Kentucky laws dealing with the privacy of our medical records in order to create a national health information system, under the guise of creating a better health care system. State Senator Daniel Mongiardo (D-Hazard) prefiled (BR 244) an identical bill in the Senate.
The bill would establish an electronic health network to “simplify administrative tasks and support evidence based clinical decisions, thereby improving the quality of health care.” According to the bill, there are “inefficiencies in the delivery of health care that contribute to the increasing cost of health care” and the implementation of the electronic health care network could provide benefits including, “potential savings could result from decreasing inefficiencies in the health care system.” The following list of “benefits” they will provide gives us a good idea of what they have planned for us. They are bound and determined to have access to every scrap of medical information about us; they can get their hands on. Our doctors, nurses, pharmacists and other health care providers are already providing these services for us. Do we really want to give the ones who ran all the insurance companies out of Kentucky access to all our medical records? There is no telling what kind of deal and with whom they will make on our behalf this time.
In Section 1, (17) In its fully implemented form, the Kentucky e-Health Network is envisioned to support or encourage the following types of electronic transactions or activities that would be phased in over time:
(a) Automatic drug-drug interaction and allergy alert
(b) Automatic preventative medicine alerts
(c) Electronic access to the results of laboratory, x-ray or other diagnostic examinations
(d) Disease management
(e) Disease surveillance and reporting
(f) Educational offerings to health care providers
(g) Health alert network and other applications related to homeland security
(h) Links to drug formularies and cost information
(i) Links to evidence based medical practice
(j) Links to patient educational materials
(k) Medical record information transfer to other providers with the patient’s consent
(l) Physician order entry
(m) Prescription drug tracking
(n) Registries for vital statistics, cancer, case management, immunizations and other public health registries
(o) Secured electronic consultations between providers and patients
(p) Single source insurance credentialing system for health care providers
The following transactions covered by HIPAA
1. Health care claims or equivalent encounter information
2. Health care payment and remittance advice
3. Coordination of benefits
4. Health care claim status
5. Enrollment and dis-enrollment in a health plan
6. Eligibility for a health plan
7. Health plan premium payments
8. Referral certification and authorization
9. First report of injury
10.Health claims attachments
Did they leave anything out? We couldn’t think of it if they did. This bill would make every aspect of your medical history available to bureaucrats, despite their claims of safeguards for protecting our privacy.
All members of the board and its committees will be appointed by the Governor and will represent the insurance industry, the medical profession, computer and software companies, hospitals and so on. There will little room for an impartial voice. Only one individual will be appointed from the public at large. All the other members of all boards, committees and subcommittees will have a vested interest in making this project as big as possible. The bill only pays lip service to create “a board to study the feasibility of implementing an electronic health network in this Commonwealth using federal and voluntarily contributed private funds, and, if the board deems a model to be feasible and the General Assembly concurs, oversee the implementation of a model, to be known as the Ke-HN.” (Section3, (1). They intend to bring this electronic health network into existence, no doubt about it.
The bill also states in Section 1, (3) “Participating in a HIPAA-compliant electronic health network would facilitate the state’s receiving federal matching funds at a rate up to ninety percent (90%) to upgrade the Medicaid management information system.” So this proves this is coming down from Washington DC. We need legislators that will stand up for the people of Kentucky not the wishes for Washington D.C. Kentucky has served as a “guinea pig” for the Clinton Administration’s failed social programs and apparently the Bush Administration wants to follow suit.
We only have to look to the media to see how safe our most private information actually is. According to the F.B.I., three (3) people stole the financial records of more than 30,000 people, destroying their credit, cleaning out their bank accounts, running up thousands of dollars on their credit cards. U.S. attorney James Comey said the losses were calculated so far at $2.7 million but would balloon to many more millions and affect consumers in every state. He called the case “every American’s worst financial nightmare multiplied tens of thousands of times.” He said, “With a few keystrokes, these men essentially picked the pockets of tens of thousands of Americans and, in the process, took their identities, stole their money and swiped their security.”
F.B.I. Assistant Director Kevin Donovan said, “The potential windfall was probably far greater than the content of a bank vault, and they didn’t even need a getaway car. All they needed was a phone and a computer, or so they thought.”
These records are supposed to be protected with the best security money can buy, and yet with the click of a mouse thousands of people lost millions. In the light of Rep. Nunn’s bill, how many people will be forced to pay blackmail to hackers to protect their medical records from their employers and prospective employers.
Politicians would not be immune from this either, imagine a hacker getting access to ‘certain’ medical information that could be made into a campaign issue very quickly. It could be used to sink his campaign or to ‘blackmail’ an incumbent for his entire political career, however long that may be.
If our financial records cannot be kept safe, how can we believe the government getting involved in our medical records will keep them safe? After all, don’t our politicians themselves say that if the government gets involved it’s going cost more and get messed up?
As you may remember in the last session, Nunn introduced the Model Emergency Health Powers Act (H.R. 370) that would have given unprecedented broad powers to the governor to declare a health emergency, order forced immunizations, and quarantine, without legislative oversight. Bills identical and very similar were introduced in most of the states and were overwhelmingly rejected by the legislatures in these states. Nunn’s bill was withdrawn before any action was taken on it. He also introduced a bill very similar to this bill in the last session, H.R 375, which died in committee.
We must remember, Representative Nunn, wants to be our governor. This bill certainly gives us the feeling that he wants bigger, more intrusive and costlier government and that’s something we don’t need!!!
These two bills also need to be sent straight to the garbage can, because it is an attempt to usurp state laws in order to bring about a standardized federal information system. The U.S. Constitution guarantees a Republican form of government to each and every state. This would abolish that guarantee and this from a guy that wants to be Governor?????
Information about the stolen identities was found on http://www.washtimes.com/ and the rest was obtained from the Kentucky Legislature’s website, www.lrc.state.ky.us.
I'm glad that you posted this. I'm glad to see that you're keeping current with Norm's Peasant's Press.
He's coming back Sunday to get busy with getting the truth out to Kentuckians about the GOP governor's race.
I got your message and I'll be calling you in a couple of days.
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