Copyright 1999 Boston Herald Inc.
The Boston Herald
April 5, 1999 Monday ALL EDITIONS
SECTION: FINANCE; Pg. 029
LENGTH: 535 words
HEADLINE:
CAPITAL FOCUS; One small step for privacy1
BYLINE: By
Ted Bunker
BODY:
Chalk up one small victory in the
fight to protect privacy in a digital world.
Malden Democrat U.S. Rep.
Ed Markey, joining Vice President Al Gore and others, last week convinced the
government's Medicare paymasters to back off a plan to collect reams of data on
some patients of home health care providers.
But hold the confetti - the
Health Care Financing Administration only plans to drop collection plans for
people not covered by Medicare or Medicaid. Starting later this month, health
care workers will compile monthly reports for HCFA listing everything from
services provided to the financial status and mental attitudes of millions of
patients. This data is supposed to improve health care delivery systems and weed
out fraud. Vermont Democrat Sen. Patrick Leahy isn't satisfied, nor is Markey,
about answers HCFA has given concerning its plans. In a Washington Post item
last week, Leahy reminded his colleagues that Congress has until late summer to
come up with a health information privacy policy, or the
Clinton administration will.
Congress had better act fast. Consider
these recent items from the Clinton administration's woeful privacy track
record:
A proposed rule (not a recently enacted law, as mistakenly
reported here in February) that would have forced banks to monitor every
customer's banking habits, to spot and report illegal activity. After a huge
outpouring of outrage, regulators retracted the "know your customer" rule late
last month.
A proposal from Attorney General Janet Reno to expand the
FBI's existing DNA database, created under a 1994 law, to include samples taken
from everyone arrested in the United States - some 15 million people every year.
Even those arrested for minor offenses would have their genetic keys recorded.
An effort to convert the government's New Hire database, created to help
agencies track down Deadbeat Dads, to one that also helps catch student loan
deadbeats. Congress rejected the move last year.
As for health care,
this administration's privacy track record is particularly pitiful. President
Clinton set a tone early in his first administration when he backed a plan
cooked up in secret by his wife, Hillary, and her health policy team. It
included the creation of a national health ID card. Mrs. Clinton seems to follow
the communitarian school (remember "It Takes a Village"?) when it comes to
health care and privacy.
Amitai Etzioni, author of "The Limits of
Privacy" and a leading communitarian, argues that privacy protections can be and
often are taken too far. He makes some valid points: identity theft costs
Americans $ 10 billion a year; $ 18 billion a year is paid improperly to illegal
aliens; mandatory drug testing of certain workers like airline pilots outweighs
privacy rights. HIV tests for pregnant women, he notes, might help save their
babies from AIDS. An estimated two-thirds don't know they have HIV, so their
babies don't get potentially life-saving treatment.
Even so, Americans
should insist that a society founded on individual liberty must find a balance
that preserves its elements, including personal privacy. In an age of datamines,
biometrics and the Internet, that's no small challenge.
LOAD-DATE: April 10, 1999
