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7/27/2006
ACTION NEEDED RIGHT
NOW!
Help stop national health information
system that has no privacy protections!
The U.S House of Representatives is now
debating, and is scheduled to vote on H.R. 4157, the Health Information
Technology Promotion Act of 2006.
NO PROVISIONS FOR
PATIENT PRIVACY OR CONSENT TO DISCLOSE
This bill would enable
the development
of a national electronic health information system. Unfortunately, there are no provisions
to protect patient privacy or security. Further, the bill doesn’t require
patient consent for your medical information to be disclosed to government or
private parties. In summary, the
bill doesn’t even recognize your right to privacy, nor your right to be informed
if there has been a security breach.
This has been a battle of the PR
wars, with misleading information claiming huge cost savings and a safer
system. Supporters point to surveys
that show that consumers support a national health information technology
system.
But that is misleading – consumers
only support a system that is voluntary, protects their privacy, allows them to
control the use of their information, and is NOT dumped into a central
repository vulnerable to security breeches.
SECURITY CANNOT BE
GUARANTEED
Even the President’s
own cyber task reported that existing systems are vulnerable to intrusions, and
it’s getting worse. Just look at
the recent breech of the VA system exposing millions of
records.
WILL NOT ACCOMPLISH
GOAL OF COST SAVINGS
The bill will not save
costs, and in fact, places a further compliance burden on physicians to purchase
and implement new technology incurring costs that will be passed along to
patients.
CALL OR WRITE YOUR
REPRESENTATIVE NOW TO OPPOSE THIS BILL.
TELL THEM THIS BILL
WON’T ACCOMPLISH THE GOALS OF A
PATIENT-CONTROLLED, SECURE, VOLUNTARY HEALTH INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
SYSTEM.
CONGRESSIONAL
SWITCHBOARD:
(202)
225-3121
EMAIL YOUR MEMBERS: http://www.house.gov/writerep/