ObamaCare aims to turn doctors into government agents

Under ObamaCare, your social history — alcohol use, drug use and sexual history — will be included in your electronic medical record. In a recent column, Ph.D. historian and former Lt. Governor of New York Betsy McCaughey reveals that “The president’s ‘reforms’ aim to turn doctors into government agents, pressuring them financially to ask questions they...

Under ObamaCare, your social history — alcohol use, drug use and sexual history — will be included in your electronic medical record.

In a recent column, Ph.D. historian and former Lt. Governor of New York Betsy McCaughey reveals that “The president’s ‘reforms’ aim to turn doctors into government agents, pressuring them financially to ask questions they consider inappropriate and unnecessary, and to violate their Hippocratic Oath to keep patients’ records confidential.”

As disturbing as it is to have the government collect your most intimate information, the potential that these records could be compromised should further heighten patients’ concerns.

In 2000, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, or HHS, presciently wrote that “The electronic information revolution is transforming the recording of health information so that the disclosure of information may require only a push of a button. In a matter of seconds, a person’s most profoundly private information can be shared with hundreds, thousands, even millions of individuals and organizations at a time.” Little did we know back then that the federal government would be catapulting the nation into this very scenario – with the government nosing into individuals’ most intimate personal information.

Compromised health and financial privacy has the potential to impact all of us. It threatens to impact patients’ reputations, the likelihood that we would avoid or delay treatment for embarrassing ailments, and it can lead to fraud – imposing enormous psychological and financial costs on those of us whose identities have been stolen.

Even if your cardiologist doesn’t need to know about your sexual activity, there will be steep financial incentives to do so. McCaughey continues: “Doctors and hospitals who don’t comply with the federal government’s electronic-health-records requirements forgo incentive payments now; starting in 2015, they’ll face financial penalties from Medicare and Medicaid. The Department of Health and Human Services has already paid out over $12.7 billion for these incentives.”

There are two ways that patients can protect themselves from a nightmare scenario of having their most intimate information released into cyberspace by hackers and criminals. First, patients can pay cash for their medical services to avoid having their information submitted electronically. In other words, you can buy your way out if you can afford it.

McCaughey offers a second option: “Patients need to defend their own privacy by refusing to answer the intrusive social-history questions. If you need to confide something pertaining to your treatment, ask your doctor about keeping two sets of books so that your secret stays in the office. Doctors take the Hippocratic Oath seriously and won’t be offended.”