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The most heavy-handed aspect of the new federal rules is the unprecedented government access to everyone’s private medical records. While masquerading as patient protection, the rules would actually eliminate any last shred of patient confidentiality. "[The Regulations]...allow government virtually unrestricted access to those same records without a warrant," states the complaint.

When it comes to government prying, these rules obliterate any remote notion of patients’ rights. Doctors are required to disclose all patients records to thousands of federal bureaucrats -- with or without consent, including handwritten notes and psychiatric records. "...consent forms [are] provided to patients as a condition for treatment...[therefore] such consent is coercive and cannot constitute a valid waiver of Fourth Amendment rights."

Law enforcement agencies will have unrestricted access to all records -- including notes about drug use, family interactions and other confessions. But it gets even worse. Not only can doctors be fined or imprisoned (up to $50,000 and one year) for withholding records, patients can be denied treatment if they refuse to sign the consent form. "Plaintiff AAPS has patient members who are already reluctant to provide information to their physicians due to the broad access to such information provided by the Privacy Regulations to the government."