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Rep. Paul Joins AAPS Fight Against Bogus 'Privacy' Rules Wes Vernon, NewsMax.comSign Free Petition to Protect Your Medical Records and Social Security Number. WASHINGTON - A prominent figure on Capitol Hill is getting more heavily involved in opposing anti-privacy health rules that government bureaucrats want to foist upon the American people. Rep. Ron E. Paul, R-Texas, has joined the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) in its lawsuit against the government’s so-called "privacy” regulations. The suit, filed in Houston Thursday, contends the rules, approved by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), are unconstitutional. Congressman Paul, a surgeon who knows the ins and outs of the health care profession, agrees with the longstanding position that rules are, in a word, bogus. "Far from protecting privacy,” the Texas lawmaker said, "these rules give government officials and certain private interests a new federal right to access your medical records without consent.” That is the bottom line in a continuing story that NewsMax.com has been following and exploring for months. Paul’s involvement in the suit adds to the high-profile efforts of House Majority Leader Dick Armey to call public attention to the problem. The suit argues the regulations are illegal because they violate the First, Fourth and 10th Amendments, as well as the Paperwork Reduction and Regulatory Flexibility Act. The latter is aimed at curbing "an immense and unjustified regulatory burden” of the type the plaintiffs argue would be placed on the shoulders of small medical practices. Not only that, HHS failed to promulgate the final regulations within the time period specified under the Health Insurance and Portability Flexibility Act (HIPFA). Here is how the rules fail to square with the Constitution, according to AAPS and Paul:
AAPS and Dr./Rep. Paul argue this constitutional protection is violated by requiring physicians to allow government access to personal medical records without a warrant or patient consent. The Fourth does not permit authorizing government to build a database of personal medical records with personal health identifiers, according to the legal papers filed Thursday.
How does this square with rules that chill patient-physician relations by requiring them to be subject to warrantless review by the government? Well, it doesn’t, say the doctors and their House colleague. That’s a reason for the legal action. The most "heavy-handed” aspect of the regulations would be unprecedented access to medical records, thus eliminating "the last shred of patient confidentiality.” The government is allowed unrestricted access to everyone’s medical records? Thousands of federal bureaucrats can paw through handwritten notes and psychiatric records? That’s what the U.S. Constitution is all about? The doctors don’t think so. And it’s OK to fine doctors $50,000 or toss them in jail for one year if they withhold the information? And patients can be denied treatment for a year if they refuse to sign the consent form? And there’s no constitutional issue there? The doctors say there’s something wrong with this picture. Already some patients are reluctant to tell their physicians some things they need to know, for fear of having it end up as semi-public information. What does that do for patient health? It’s not as if the doctors rushed into the courtroom at the drop of a hat. "We’ve tried everything else,” explains Dr. Jane Orient, executive director of AAPS. "We’ve tried everything else. We’ve appealed to Congress, we’ve testified at HHS, we’ve generated tens of thousands of public comments and frozen up the HHS e-mail server with public response. None of it has done any good.”
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