[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 35 (Thursday, March 15, 2001)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E371-E372]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




       INTRODUCTION OF THE MEDICAL PRIVACY PROTECTION RESOLUTION

                                 ______
                                 

                             HON. RON PAUL

                                of texas

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, March 15, 2001

  Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, I rise to introduce the Medical Privacy 
Protection Resolution, which uses the Congressional Review Act to 
repeal the so-called Medical Privacy regulation. Many things in 
Washington are misnamed, however, this regulation may be the most 
blatant case of false advertising I have come across in all my years in 
Congress. Rather than protect an individual right to medical privacy, 
these regulations empower government officials to determine how much 
medical privacy an individual ``needs.'' This ``one-size-fits-all'' 
approach ignores the fact that different people may prefer different 
levels of privacy. Certain individuals may be willing to exchange a 
great deal of their personal medical information in order to obtain 
certain benefits, such as lower-priced care or having information 
targeted to their medical needs sent to them in a timely manner. Others 
may forgo those benefits in order to limit the number of people who 
have access to their medical history. Federal bureaucrats cannot 
possibly know, much less meet, the optimal level of privacy for each 
individual. In contrast, the free market allows individuals to obtain 
the level of privacy protection they desire.
  The so-called ``medical privacy'' regulations not only reduce an 
individual's ability to determine who has access to their personal 
medical information, they actually threaten medical privacy and 
constitutionally-protected liberties. For example, these regulations 
allow law enforcement and other government officials access to a 
citizen's private medical record without having to obtain a search 
warrant.
  Allowing government officials to access a private person's medical 
records without a warrant is a violation of the fourth amendment to the 
United States Constitution, which protects American citizens from 
warrantless searches by government officials. The requirement that law 
enforcement officials obtain a warrant from a judge before searching 
private documents is one of the fundamental protections against abuse 
of the government's power to seize an individual's private documents. 
While the fourth amendment has been interpreted to allow warrantless 
searches in emergency situations, it is hard to conceive of a situation 
where law enforcement officials would be unable to obtain a warrant 
before electronic medical records would be destroyed.
  Mr. Speaker, these regulations also require health care providers to 
give medical records to the federal government for inclusion in a 
federal health care data system. Such a system would contain all 
citizens' personal health care information. History shows that when the 
government collects this type of personal information, the inevitable 
result is the abuse of citizens' privacy and liberty by unscrupulous 
government officials. The only fail-safe privacy protection is for the 
government not to collect and store this type of personal information.
  In addition to law enforcement, these so-called ``privacy 
protection'' regulations create a privileged class of people with a 
federally-guaranteed right to see an individual's medical

[[Page E372]]

records without the individual's consent. For example, medical 
researchers may access a person's private
  Forcing individuals to divulge medical information without their 
consent also runs afoul of the fifth amendment's prohibition on taking 
private property for public use without just compensation. After all, 
people do have a legitimate property interest in their private 
information. Therefore, restrictions on an individual's ability to 
control the dissemination of their private information represents a 
massive regulatory taking. The takings clause is designed to prevent 
this type of sacrifice of individual property rights for the ``greater 
good.''
  In a free society such as the one envisioned by those who drafted the 
Constitution, the federal government should never force a citizen to 
divulge personal information to advance ``important social goals.'' 
Rather, it should be up to the individuals, not the government, to 
determine what social goals are important enough to warrant allowing 
others access to their personal property, including their personal 
information. To the extent these regulations sacrifice individual 
rights in the name of a bureaucratically-determined ``common good,'' 
they are incompatible with a free society and a constitutional 
government.
  The collection and storage of personal medical information 
``authorized'' by these regulations may also revive an effort to 
establish a ``unique health identifier'' for all Americans. The same 
legislation which authorized these privacy rules also authorized the 
creation of a ``unique health care identifier'' for every American. 
However, Congress, in response to a massive public outcry, has included 
a moratorium on funds for developing such an identifier in HHS budgets 
for the last three fiscal years.
  By now it should be clear to every member of Congress that the 
American people do not want their health information recorded on a 
database, and they do not wish to be assigned a unique health 
identifier. According to a survey by the respected Gallup Company, 91 
percent of Americans oppose assigning Americans a ``unique health care 
identifier'' while 92 percent of the people oppose allowing government 
agencies the unrestrained power to view private medical records and 88 
percent of Americans oppose placing private health care information in 
a national database. Mr. Speaker, Congress must heed the wishes of the 
American people and repeal these HHS regulations before they go into 
effect and become a backdoor means of numbering each American and 
recording their information in a massive health care database.
  The American public is right to oppose these regulations, for they 
not only endanger privacy but could even endanger health! As an OB-GYN 
with more than 30 years experience in private practice, I am very 
concerned by the threat to medical practice posed by these regulations. 
The confidential physician-patient relationship is the basis of good 
health care. Oftentimes, effective treatment depends on the patient's 
ability to place absolute trust in his or her doctor. The legal system 
has acknowledged the importance of maintaining physician-patient 
confidentiality by granting physicians a privilege not to divulge 
confidential patient information.
  I ask my colleagues to consider what will happen to that trust 
between patients and physicians when patients know that any and all 
information given their doctor may be placed in a government database 
or seen by medical researchers or handed over to government agents 
without so much as a simple warrant?
  Mr. Speaker, I am sure my colleagues agree that questions regarding 
who should or should not have access to one's medical privacy are best 
settled by way of contract between a patient and a provider. However, 
the government-insurance company complex that governs today's health 
care industry has deprived individual patients of control over their 
health care records, as well as over numerous other aspects of their 
health care. Rather than put the individual back in charge of his or 
her medical records, the Department of Health and Human Services' 
privacy regulations give the federal government the authority to decide 
who will have access to individual medical records. These regulations 
thus reduce individuals' ability to protect their own medical privacy.
  These regulations violate the fundamental principles of a free 
society by placing the perceived ``societal'' need to advance medical 
research over the individual's right to privacy. They also violate the 
fourth and fifth amendments by allowing law enforcement officials and 
government favored special interests to seize medical records without 
an individual's consent or a warrant and could facilitate the creation 
of a federal database containing the health care data of every American 
citizen. These developments could undermine the doctor-patient 
relationship and thus worsen the health care of millions of Americans. 
I, therefore, call on my colleagues to join me in repealing this latest 
threat to privacy and quality health care by cosponsoring the Medical 
Privacy Protection Resolution.

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