Patient Advocate Says ACA Will Destroy Patient Privacy

 

Patient privacy is under assault from a series of federal laws, culminating in the Affordable Care Act (ACA or "ObamaCare"), wrote patient advocate Twila Brase, RN, in the winter 2013 issue of the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons. Brase is president and cofounder of the Citizens' Council for Health Freedom.

Brase emphasized that "he who holds the data makes the rules." The push toward EMRs is designed to funnel vast amounts of patients' formerly confidential information into a huge network of private and governmental entities.

Under the "Privacy Rule" of HIPAA, 701,325 entities have access to "protected"
health information. HIPAA is really a "NO-privacy" law, Brase wrote.

"The master control and the largest surveillance system of all is ACA's Exchange, now euphemistically called 'The Marketplace.'" There is actually only one exchange, Brase stated. There is one central server—the Federal Data Services Hub, connected to "dummy terminals ('state exchanges')."

ACA is a "data miner's dream," she wrote. "The surveillance and reporting provisions set in place the tools needed to impose a national healthcare system. The federal government needs the information in our medical records to impose control over our doctors and our personal lives."

The federal government will use patient data to ration care and control physicians, Brase predicted. The IRS will use ACA's Exchange to police the individual and employer mandates and to impose the "uninsured tax" penalty. "Seven hundred pages of the 2,700-page bill were a rewrite of the IRS code to empower the IRS with access to personal data," Brase stated.

To reclaim health freedom, Brase wrote that we must stop government intrusions into the medical record. She advised patients to seek care from physicians outside the insurance system who accept direct payment and keep records out of the government data base.

Source: Association of American Physicians & Surgeons