Wes Vernon
Saturday, March 31, 2001

As I reported to you Thursday, Armey has said he intends to speak to the secretary. He had heard that some feedback from HHS was less than hopeful; news reports had indicated the secretary was mainly concerned with the costs involved in the program, with no mention of the privacy factor.

The congressman's office tells NewsMax.com that one reason he has not yet contacted Thompson is that his focus the last couple of days has been on calling attention to Friday's Federal Trade Commission report (see below) exposing the phony "price gouging" scare on gasoline prices during last year's presidential campaign.

Armey still intends to talk to Thompson, who has until April 14 to decide what to do with the last-minute regulations, which were promulgated by the outgoing Clinton administration during the Christmas holidays. That is a time when Washington practically shuts down, as the attention of most Americans is directed elsewhere.

Armey spokesman Richard Diamond told me Friday that the majority leader knows and respects Thompson and that "we want to give the secretary the benefit of the doubt."

Meanwhile, HHS spokesman Craig Palosky said Friday that so far, the official comment office of the department has received "over 5,000" communications on this matter. It was not clear whether that figure was for 5,000 individual letters or also included signers of petitions.

If the latter were the case, it surely did not include the 27,604 signers of a petition from NewsMax.com that was sent overnight by Federal Express to arrive at the HHS comment office by Friday's 5 p.m. deadline. Palosky said the totals would not be released until early next week. It is possible the "over 5,000" figure is counting the NewsMax.com communication as a single response, because the 27,604 signed a single petition. We will insist on a breakdown when HHS is prepared to give us the final count.

Whatever happens, the issue is not likely to die soon. As we reported to you previously, there is legislation in the House specifically designed to block federal efforts to implement the dangerous new regulations.

"Dangerous"? Yes. Read on.

Congressman: Rules Would Hurt Patient-Doctor Relationship

Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, the chief sponsor of the measure, says: "These regulations will harm millions of Americans. Patients will be afraid to disclose sensitive information to their doctors because it will end up in a federal database. Patients will be forced to conceal a wide range of sensitive medical problems, such as AIDS, impotence, sexually transmitted diseases, drug and alcohol addictions, and psychiatric problems."

I spent some time on the phone the other night talking with an angry NewsMax.com reader from Chicago lecturing me that I should do my duty and read through all 1,500 pages of this last-minute Clinton regulation and that until I do, I didn't know what I was talking about.

In that regard, I am indebted to NewsMax.com senior editor and columnist John L. Perry. He, himself, has in fact combed through "the hundreds and hundreds of pages of this gobbledygook." Perry, a prize-winning newspaper editor and writer who has served in the White House under two presidents, "has written [his] share of federal regs."

Privacy Protection Claims 'a Lie'

Perry says the document is laced with claims that it provides "enhanced protections for individually identifiable health information."

"A lie," says Perry. "It does the opposite."

Put this rule on the books, he says, and "every patient will need to go to the doctor's office accompanied by an attorney."

So those who are trying to make the case that we don't know what is in the anti-privacy regulations are mistaken. We know all too well. If you have not read Perry's column, you should. Perry spent "an entire evening, the next day and the better part of another evening" going through the proposal with a fine-tooth comb.

And let us recall a quote in our own March 28 report from a member of an HHS panel seeking ways to get around privacy rules:

"We need to make the case that a UPI (Unique Patient Identifier) could actually help maintain privacy."

And so they have tried to make that case. The problem is the high-toned pro-privacy statements in those 1,500 pages are belied by the bottom line on what the regulation actually does.

As Perry puts it: "If you don’t read the key portions at least twice, you miss the 'except as otherwise provided in Section this, that or the other' escape hatches. It's easier to navigate amid the mirrors in the fun house at the county carnival."

The Gasoline Price-Gouging Hoax

Now to Armey's activity bringing the public's attention to a Federal Trade Commission report that clearly shows the big gasoline "price gouging" scare of last summer was just so much hogwash:

Last June, the FTC undertook an investigation into the cause of surging gasoline prices in the Midwest. At the time, prices at the pump exceeded $2 a gallon.

The Clinton administration used that as an excuse to pressure the FTC to investigate the alleged "conspiracy" by oil executives. The agency took the dramatic step of issuing subpoenas to oil companies, with a hint that "profiteering" was the culprit.

Then Vice President Al Gore chimed in with the same charge that "big oil," with the collaboration of those evil Republicans, was picking the pockets of "working families."

"Now we know the truth," says Armey, citing the results of the FTC study released Friday, which shows "no evidence of collusion or any other antitrust violation. …"

All of this was intended to divert attention from the Clinton administration's lack of an energy policy, the House majority leader said.

He also noted that California Gov. Gray Davis was using the same "price gouging" charges to blame that state's electricity woes on utility companies.

All of this is happening while President Bush seeks to implement an energy policy that displeases special-interest environmental groups, which believe you should be willing to freeze in the dark in the name of conservation and a never-ending hope that someday the ever-elusive wind and solar power will come to the rescue.

Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
Medical Privacy
Clinton Scandals
Bush Administration

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