Just between you, your doctor and the State of Tennessee
Now here's a legitimate right to privacy being infringed upon.
The plan is to mandate that your insurance company transmit all of your healthcare transactions to the state. You will be assigned a unique encrypted patient identifier by your insurance company. This identifier will be used by the state to track all of your healthcare transactions so that they can evaluate you according to the criteria listed above. Your doctor will also receive a unique healthcare provider identifier; but he or she will be fully identifiable.Rep. Susan Lynn (R-Mt. Juliet) explains further at her blog what's going on here with HB2289/SB2239.
What if you should want to opt-out? Well, you can’t.
(snip)
I fail to see how legislators mandating insurance companies to turn over your healthcare transactions to the state cannot violate the Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution; unreasonable searches and seizures.
No Republican legislators should be voting for this...and clearly some know this as "Rep.(s) Bell, Campfield, Lynn, and Dennis requested to be recorded as voting No" after the vote in the House Government Operations Committee. Kudos to them for sticking to conservative principals. This thing needs to be killed ASAP.
I do wonder, though, will this include information on abortions sought? Or will those get some special exemption?
5 comments:
I wish people would do more research on this issue. The reason for this database is to track healthcare availablity and need in different parts of the state. This will not only help the state to work towards increasing healthcare in needy areas of the state it will also help those that have recently graduated from medical school find work and could potentially attract business and families that are looking for better healthcare. This is going to be a numbers game, not an identity game.
No. Absolutely No. There is no need for the government to demand I lose my right to privacy in order to learn if others MIGHT need government intervention in their health care. Want to know what areas are being under served? Hang out at the Vandy Children's Hospital waiting room and ask where they're from.
What to expand health care availability in those needy areas? Get rid of certificates of need. Let the market decide.
It doesn't bolster your argument to assume that my right to privacy is less important than the job needs of medical students.
Don't even start with 'potentially attract businesses...' How many times have we gone down that road to find it completely desolate?
Families looking for better health care can do what works. Ask friends and neighbors for references.
You are not losing your privacy. The government will not know the information on the individual patient. This will simply make it easiser for the healthcare industry and the state to compile reports to determine the state of healthcare in TN.
"The government will not know the information on the individual patient." I just flat don't believe this will be true. I can't believe anyone who has lived a few decades actually believes this.
Post a Comment