(please scroll to bottom for update)
The more digging into the healthcare bill that is done, the more stuff like the following is churned up:
Privacy concerns are generating another round of complaints about health care legislation being considered in the House.
The bill calls for the secretary of health and human services to be able to quickly determine a person's financial responsibility and eligibility for health care services, "which may include utilization of a machine-readable health plan beneficiary identification card."
The language has been long sought after by some health reform advocates who say it will enable more streamlined and effective medical care, but the words are chilling to privacy advocates who do not want the government tracking their medical history.
"That provision is extremely worrisome," said Wayne Crews, vice president for policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a libertarian think tank. "What kind of information would they collect?"
At a town hall meeting in Lebanon, Pa., residents were wondering the same thing and they demanded answers from Sen. Arlen Specter, a Democrat who recently switched from the GOP and who has not said how he will vote on health care reform when the Senate considers a bill this fall.
"I have spent 35 years in information technology," one woman in the audience said to Specter. "I read this bill very closely. You are about to concentrate more information about more Pennsylvanians and Americans in this bill in one place in the computers of Washington that has ever occurred."
Specter elicited laughs and boos when he responded, "With respect to privacy, we'll do everything we can to stop people from breaking into the files."
(emphasis ours)
Two things: First, Specter does nothing to refute the notion that the Feds will be collecting medical information on U.S. citizens for whatever ends they deem fit once they have it and secondly, Specter misses the point entirely. That people from the outside can hack into “the files” is entirely secondary to the question of what in god’s name are “the files” doing in the hands of a federal bureaucracy and what will they be doing with that information?
P.S. It appears the end-of-life provision is being dropped:
Key senators are excluding a provision on end-of-life care from health overhaul legislation after language in a House bill caused a furor.(italics, ours)
Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, said in a statement Thursday that the provision had been dropped from consideration because it could be misinterpreted or implemented incorrectly.
Despite the provision being dropped for conclusions being drawn that matched ours, Yahoo insists on running a banner over linked story, FACT CHECK: No 'death panel in health care bill' alongside a picture of Sarah Palin.
Maybe that Sarah Palin is not so irrelevant afterall.
And just because this dangerous provision is being tossed doesn't mean the overall bill should not be opposed with the same vigor as the privacy concerns revealed above would attest.
The fact that the Feds would have access to our financial records in order to determine our "eligibility" would suggest they are not out of the business of dictating the whats, hows and whens with respect to specific healthcare treatment.
(UPDATE #1): We picked up on this about 3 weeks ago and though we didn't connect the dots at the time, it should've been pretty clear to us who it was that would be in the best position to access personal finances to provide to the secretary of health and human services. Check that. Not only would this entity be in position to access information on our personal finances but they would be instrumental in determining if your health insurance plan passes regulatory muster.
Ladies and gentleman, depending upon your vantage point, no greater friend - no worse enemy... the I.R.S.
In short, health care reform, as currently envisioned by Democratic leaders, would be built on the foundation of an expanded and more intrusive IRS.
Under the various proposals now on the table, the IRS would become the main agency for determining who has an "acceptable" health insurance plan; for finding and punishing those who don't have such a plan; for subsidizing individual health insurance costs through the issuance of a tax credits; and for enforcing the rules on those who attempt to opt out, abuse, or game the system. A substantial portion of H.R. 3200, the House health care bill, is devoted to amending the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 in order to give the IRS the authority to perform these new duties.
If this bears out, it will be a massive expansion of duties and responsibilities which would be entirely out of that agency's swim lane, at that. We're still of the mind that the I.R.S. will merely be passing along your financial information to whichever board or czar will be governing health insurance regulation but no matter... it will be a governmental third party giving the thumbs up/thumbs down on your choice for a health insurance plan.
Can't wait.
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2 comments:
Ok, so "death panel" is pejorative. But the end result of rationing will be a panel or bureaucrat that will determine whether or not it is worthwhile to pursue proceedures at a person's end of life. This is the prudent and responsible thing to do when rationing. These are now taxpayer dollars. We need to be good stewards of our brother's money, what's wrong with that?
The technology/information issue is for me the scariest part of this. And knowing someone at the forefront of security in this issue,the Gov is ill equipted to protect any of it...regardless of how they use it themselves.
Tha death panel stuff is very vague in HR 3200...open for interpretation. How the end of life counseling is conducted depends on who is calling the shots from the top. And just because the Senate "says" they are going to drop it,doesn't mean they actually will. The House hasn't made a peep on the issue.
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