Posted on 07/16/2010 5:11:32 AM PDT by IbJensen
CNSNews.com) – New federal regulations issued this week stipulate that the electronic health records--that all Americans are supposed to have by 2014 under the terms of the stimulus law that President Barack Obama signed last year--must record not only the traditional measures of height and weight, but also the Body Mass Index: a measure of obesity.
The obesity-rating regulation states that every American's electronic health record must: “Calculate body mass index. Automatically calculate and display body mass index (BMI) based on a patient’s height and weight.”
The law also requires that these electronic health records be available--with appropriate security measures--on a national exchange.
The new regulations are one of the first steps towards the government’s goal of universal adoption of electronic health records (EHRs) by 2014, as outlined in the 2009 economic stimulus law. Specifically, the regulations issued on Tuesday by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Dr. David Blumenthal, the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, define the "meaningful use" of electronic records. Under the stimulus law, health care providers--including doctors and hospitals--must establish "meaningful use" of EHRs by 2014 in order to qualify for federal subsidies. After that, they will be subjected to penalties in the form of diminished Medicare and Medicaid payments for not establishing "meaningful use" of EHRs.
Section 3001 of the stimulus law says: "The National Coordinator shall, in consultation with other appropriate Federal agencies (including the National Institute of Standards and Technology), update the Federal Health IT Strategic Plan (developed as of June 3, 2008) to include specific objectives, milestones, and metrics with respect to the following: (i) The electronic exchange and use of health information and the enterprise integration of such information.‘‘(ii) The utilization of an electronic health record for each person in the United States by 2014."
Under this mandate in the stimulus law, Secretary Sebelius issued a regulation--developed by Dr. Blumenthal--that requires that all EHRs keep track of a person’s Body Mass Index (BMI) score. Body Mass Index is a ratio between a person’s weight and height, and is used to determine whether or not someone is overweight or obese. It is the preferred method of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for measuring obesity.
Michelle Obama has made dealing with the problem of childhood obesity the main theme of her term as First Lady.
U.S. Surgeon General Regina Benjamin. (Photo by Penny Starr/CNSNews.com) According to the CDC, “BMI provides a reliable indicator of body fatness for most people and is used to screen for weight categories that may lead to health problems.”
A person’s BMI score is used as a tool to screen for obesity or excessive body fat that could lead to other health problems. While it does not actually measure body fat directly, according to CDC, the BMI scores generally correlate with a person’s body fat percentage.
The new regulations also stipulate that the new electronic records be capable of sending public health data to state and federal health agencies such as HHS and CDC. The CDC, which calls American society “obesogenic” – meaning that American society itself promotes obesity – collects BMI scores from state health agencies every year to monitor obesity nationwide.
“Electronically record, retrieve, and transmit syndrome based public health surveillance information to public health agencies,” the regulations read.
With the spread of electronic health records, the CDC apparently will be able to collect such data more efficiently and with greater accuracy because the electronic record keeping systems can send the data automatically, eliminating the need for government – both state and federal – to keep, send, and process physical records.
If you have the height and weight of the person you can compute the body/mass index on an as needed basis.
BMI is BS pure and simple. It has nothing to do with a persons percentage of body fat but is a very rough measurement to estimate a persons healthy weight.
If you’re physically fit it’s useless...
I can gain 40 lbs before I become obese. I look around....I don't see a lot of people that are 40 pounds overweight. And when I do, I also see too much beer, too much food and too much soda.
I weighed more (113) when I was young but had more muscle. At 67, that's the way it is with "normal" exercise.
May I add this, some of the people Obama has brought into government are UNEMPLOYABLE!
Dr.Berwick will decide which way the fat people go as they get off the train.............
I don't suppose there's any point in asking 'Where in the Constitution is this authorized?'
Article I, Section 8:
The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;I don't see any reference to Body Mass Index there.To borrow Money on the credit of the United States;
To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;
To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;
To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;
To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States;
To establish Post Offices and post Roads;
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;
To constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court;
To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offences against the Law of Nations;
To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;
To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;
To provide and maintain a Navy;
To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;
To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;
To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;
To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings; — And
To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.
And then, as in Britain, the gov’t can remove any child deemed obese, from its parents.
It's ALL marketing.
Fat people eat and die. Skinny people eat and die.
Cynical me suspects that blacks will have a special category so they won’t be denied coverage for being obese.
My thought on all this was reinforced by a recent trip to the DC Mall. The citizens of America are there on parade, visiting the museums. It is a broad cross section of folks.
My thought is that in the not to distant future, the death rates of women will begin to exceed that of men. Those grossly, that is morbidly, obese women now in their twenties and thirties will not make much past 40 and will be gone by 45.
The morbidly obese women were accompanied by big men, likely obese, but not morbidly obese.
This same phenomenon can be observed at Walmart, but not to the same degree because the men are not there.
Dead women mean that social security and medicare will be saved by obesity.
Yo First Lady so fat, she carry euros in one pocket and pesos in the other!
;^)
Soylent Green
And, it is egregious intrusions like this into my private, personal business by the federal monarchy that I don't want. I DO NOT support electronic health records and I will not tolerate the snoops and busybodies in the governmenbt tip-toeing through my private, personal medical records.
You can’t measure obesity in just weight and height. Back in my prime, when I had time to workout and lift weights daily, I was 210 pounds at 5’8” and considered obese by all government standards. Yet, I could run a 45 minute 10k and had almost no fat. Now I weigh 170, wear a medium shirt and 32 inch waist pants and I am still considered “overweight”, but no longer “obese”. People have different bone densities and frames. According to the BMI charts, I should be between 125 and 150 pounds. I would look like an AIDS patient if my weight got that low.
"Are you serious?!?"
/pelosi
Next thing will be a requirement that we all use skin lotion to stay soft and supple right up to harvest time.
I like this idea. The only problem is that sooner or later, something will probably come up where an accurate weight is required ... such as determining dose for anesthesia.
The whole thing is so stupid to me. The best way to determine if someone is too fat is to look at him.
With Uncle Joe Stalin in the White House, we proles have to expect this sort of thing.
There has NEVER, in the ENTIRE history of Planet Earth, been a government that extended programs without comparable restrictions placed on freedoms.
Something Americans might be well advised to ponder as they clamor for ever greater programs from Washington in loco parentis.
That particular odious little emanation did occur to me.
Good thing you and Pete are working out ping.
We need to apply BMI scoring to the government.
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