Privacy & Healthcare
March 25, 2001
Washington Wire 3 25
Red Hot!!!
Ø “But I can tell you that I do have the authority to rewrite it, to suspend it, to postpone it, or to let it go into effect the way it is.”
Secretary Tommy G. Thompson on Fox News Channel’s
"Hannity & Colmes," March 22, 2001.
The Privacy Wars are heating up in Washington DC
Prospects for the privacy final rule have changed dramatically. It is in very deep trouble.
Ø AFEHCT sent Secretary Thompson a letter supporting the privacy final rule as promulgated on December 28th, 2000.
Ø The effective date of the privacy final rule is reset to April 14th, 2001.
Ø The Secretary reopened the privacy final rule for comment. Responses due March 30th.
Ø House Majority Leader Dick Armey sent a letter to Secretary Thompson asking that HHS final rule on privacy be put on hold until a comprehensive review could be conducted. The Armey letter opposed the privacy final rule because it invaded the privacy of individuals because it required doctors to share medical records with agencies of the federal government
Ø Rep Ron Paul introduces Resolution to repeal privacy final rule on same grounds as
as put forth in Dick Armey's letter. (This is the same kind of resolution that was introduced to get rid of the ergonomics rule.) Rep. Paul is so far to the right that he is not taken seriously by his Republican colleagues in the House. The House and Senate would have to pass this reolution before April 14th.
Ø The Healthcare Leadership Council (HLC) heads a very large and diverse coalition of health care interests in Washington. It had lead the opposition to the HHS privacy rules. It figured prominently in the Secretary’s decisions to reset the effective date of the final rule to April 14th; and to reopen the final rule for comments. On March 14th, they circulated a draft of their comments to the Secretary. Their comments
Prior Consent requirement
repeal the consent requirement in the final rule and return to the provisions in the proposed rule which allowed identifiable information to be used and disclosed for treatment, payment, and health care operations without consent or authorization.
Minimum necessary
Eliminate the minimum necessary requirement.
Marketing
Eliminate this requirement at least where information would be used for treatment, payment or health care operations.
Business associates
Eliminate the business associate provisions. Eliminate all contract provisions.
Oral Communications
Return to regulating electronically transmitted information
Preemption
Under the current legislative language, HHS should at least provide guidance on a continuing basis as to which state laws are more stringent than federal laws.
Effective date
HLC urges that the Department not allow the final rule to become effective on April 14, 2001 because: (1) The Department will need adequate time to consider the thousands of comments it receives; (2) Once the rule becomes effective, the two year compliance period begins and if major changes are to be made to the rule a great deal of time and resources will have been misspent; (3) There are five other standards to be issued under HIPAA which relate to the privacy standard. The HLC urges the Department to postpone the effective date at least several months, followed by issuance of either a new proposed rule or interim final rule after adequate time for consideration of comments to fix the problems we have identified.
Ø AHA testifies before the House Ways and Means Committee (on March 15) that the HHS privacy final rule is too burdensome, too costly and its implementation schedule too aggressive. (The subject of the hearing was the burden of HCFA / HHS regulations.) AHA asked that concerns about the rule’s complexity, costs and implementation timetable must be addressed prior to the rule’s effective date. AHA is asking that the implementation period for the privacy rule be extended beyond the current two year period.
Ø On March 21, The HHS privacy final rule debated on Fox News Channel’s "Hannity & Colmes," Guests Christopher Ruddy, editor of the online newsletter Newsmax.com, discussed the extent to which the rules will give government agencies access to private medical files, and what the agencies can do with that information. Ruddy said the regulations "would create a unique health identification number for every individual in this country, track them from birth to death. If you've ever been to a psychiatrist, someone in your family's ever had an abortion, you've ever had a drinking problem, any ... sexually transmitted diseases, the government would have all of that information and could look at it without your consent." Co-host Sean Hannity said that "doctor[s] will have to [release], as mandated by law, ... [the] private personal medical records of every U.S. citizen. There will be no privacy anymore! It will no longer exist! I would think liberals would be upset about that" ("Hannity & Colmes," Fox News, 3/21).
On the Newsmax.com website, visitors to the website were encouraged to “Sign NewsMax.com's Free Petition to Secretary Thompson to help stop Clinton's executive order.”
Ø In an interview on Fox News Channel's "Hannity & Colmes," on March 22, Thompson said of the HHS privacy final rule…”But I can tell you that I do have the authority to rewrite it, to suspend it, to postpone it, or to let it go into effect the way it is.”
On the Newsmax.com website, visitors to the website were encouraged to “Sign NewsMax.com's Free Petition to Secretary Thompson to help stop Clinton's executive order.”
Ø The House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on Health held hearings on Thursday, March 22. The hearing were entitled: "Assessing HIPAA: How Federal Medical Record Privacy Regulations Can Be Improved." Witnesses were by invitation only.
According to staff the subcommittee hopes to identify those parts of the privacy standard that don’t work and ask the Secretary to correct those provisions.
The Washington Post, the LA Times, and the New York Times all wrote stories. These stories described the atmosphere in Washington. Prospects for the privacy final rule have changed dramatically. The Post’s and the LA Times’ urls are:
latimes.com
washingtonpost.com |
