Wes Vernon, NewsMax.com
Wednesday, April 9, 2003

The issue with the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) is whether doctors will be deemed criminals if they refuse to divulge your records. The 60-year-old physicians’ group is seeking contributions to pay for ads in USA Today, the Wall Street Journal and/or your local newspaper.

The regulations in question kick in Monday under provisions of the 1996 Health Insurance Portability Accountability Act (HIPAA). This legislation was passed after Hillary Clinton’s disastrous scheme for socialized medicine went down in flames in 1994 at the hands of a Democrat Congress. This public relations disaster for the Clintons helped enable the Republicans to gain control of Congress later that year.

However, the ever-resourceful left never gives up in its drive for a socialist America. Pressure was brought to bear to pass HIPPA in 1996:the so-called Kennedy-Kassebaum bill.

In 2001, the newly installed Bush administration started the ball rolling on implementation of the plan by proposing “privacy” rules that required a two-year period for public review. The document was released late on a Friday afternoon after most reporters had gone home for a holiday weekend. That is an old Washington ploy when dealing with bad news.

NewsMax.com at the time thoroughly reviewed all 1,500 pages of the rules and determined that they were actually anti-privacy and that the term “privacy rules" was a misnomer. Our columnist John Perry examined the entire volume, line by line.

The ad AAPS hopes to take out around the country displays the familiar Miranda warning: “You have the right to remain silent ... Anything you say can and will be used against you.”

“Think it only applies to criminals?” the ad asks, “Think again.”

It then goes on to explain that as of Monday, "every medical patient in the U.S. is subject to new regualtions that give away your right to restrict the use of your medical records.”

Government agencies, insurance companies, mail marketers and law enforcement can look at your confidential information without your consent, even all your old paper records from years ago and psychiatric notes, the ad explains.

Doctors can choose not to participate in the plan, however. Otherwise, all you can hope for is a notice of where your confidential records have gone.

AAPS urges patients to ask their doctors to stay out of HIPAA. If the doctor does not stay out, the patient can ask to have his records removed. AAPS says it has the forms to fill out. The group can be contacted at 800-419-4777.

Doctors are urged to escape HIPAA and refuse to participate.

“It’s all legal,” the ad explains, “You’ll save money on compliance, avoid liability and exposure, and protect your patients’ privacy.”

Doctors offices are so jumpy about the minor privacy issues, the focus of the new rules, that some have taken to giving patients a number in the waiting room so they can call them simply by number instead of by name. Meanwhile, on the important issues, the new rules shatter the privacy of the patient’s medical records.

In at least one instance when Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson spoke in Washington, a top aide from HHS sat next to the moderator who was screening the questions. Not one of several written questions concerning the controversial “privacy” regulation was read to the secretary in the question-and-answer period.

It appears an effort has been made to slip this by the public as quietly as possible.

Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:

Bush Administration

Health Issues

Privacy

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