[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 85 (Thursday, June 23, 2005)]
[House]
[Page H5084]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                LABOR-HHS BILL VIOLATES SENIORS' PRIVACY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. McHenry). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, when the House passed the so-called 
Medicare Modernization Act, the purported prescription drug benefit for 
seniors in the dark of the night, after holding the vote open for 3 
hours by a small margin, a lot of Members did not know fully what was 
in the bill. We know we were lied to about the cost and that it was 
withheld from the Congress. There were a lot of other provisions people 
did not realize were in there.
  But there is one that we still have a chance to correct tomorrow with 
an amendment I am going to offer. Seniors are going to be outraged if 
my amendment is not accepted.
  The bill waives all privacy rights for seniors on Medicare and 
Medicaid. That is, the Secretary of Health and Human Services is, 
notwithstanding any other provision of law, able to disclose their 
personal information to private insurance companies who supposedly will 
not share it with anybody beyond their company. It is bad enough it is 
going to a bunch of private insurance companies, but we know, with the 
interconnectedness of these companies and problems with data retention, 
that these seniors are likely to have their data widely shared; in 
addition to which, that means these seniors will be solicited over the 
phone by mail, aggressively, by private prescription drug plans, 
insurance companies, obviously trying to sell them something they 
probably will not really understand.
  Now, some people on that side will say, well, how else are we going 
to market this plan? You do it the way we do the Federal Employees 
Health Benefit Plan. The government compiles all the data, you send it 
to all the eligible people, and then you, the consumer, have a choice. 
They look at the ones they are interested in, they have a 1-800 number, 
a Web site, they contact them. We do not give the personal information 
about every Federal employee or Member of Congress to private insurance 
companies to solicit us; why should we do that to every senior in 
America? They will be outraged.
  Mr. Speaker, it is a simple amendment. It just says that this will 
not go into effect, and then the Secretary of Health and Human Services 
can work out a much better plan for marketing this program that does 
not violate the sanctity, the privacy of all, every one of America's 
seniors. That would be an outrage, and they will notice.

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