Electronic Health Records: Has President Obama Gone Rogue?

President Obama seems to be pushing harder and more irrationally for what he wants rather than considering the American people. He's forgotten his own contribution to the new mean-ing of America (look up quotes about everyone having skin in the game or making sacrifices) as he pushes for specific items to address the needs of small segments of our society.

Simultaneously, he's responding to his frustration by using any legitimate means possible such as his Executive Order re immigration while scolding and whining about others for using legitimate means such as the filibuster to protect their agenda.

From his pushing through his stay of enforcement of illegal immigration laws on some illegal immigrants to his refusal to cut programs that don’t work to save money for pet projects, to his failure to anticipate negative consequences from his pet projects, this President has gone rogue (here using the definition of rogue as unreliable).

He’s resorted to scolding rather than reason. He’s redefining who the middle class is as a civil service class (through his jobs bill, his current pet project) and omitting the vast majority of Americans who quite frankly are slipping through the cracks as the un-favored children in an administration gone amok.

As we approach the next phases of healthcare reform, it is difficult to understand the relentless push for electronic health records in a real world where people’s online data is constantly being breached and where the sensitive and most private health information leaks promise to be addressed in a fashion that neither compensates the person whose information is out there nor sufficiently punishes those who leak your information to ensure substantive efforts at preventing such leaks in the first place.

HIPAA, passed BEFORE President Obama’s tenure,is a real pet peeve for me because it’s an obstacle to patient families who pay bills or are trying to find out about a family member’s insurance coverage absent a health care proxy providing a family member with an effective power of attorney to access information while it’s largely ineffective in “protecting” patient privacy.

To date HIPAA reports that “corrective action” is taken in only about 23 percent of the complaints it receives as disclosed in its “HIPAA & Breach Enforcement Statistics for June 2012.” (Search by that title)

HIPAA enforcement is handled by the HHS Office for Civil Rights.

OK, so HIPAA’s acting on a startlingly small number of complaints it receives, 23 percent.

And what if your complaint is among the 23%? HIPAA has a requirement that the violation be “KNOWINGLY” done or else the covered entity is limited to a fine of $100 per violation not to exceed $25,000 in a year. The vast majority of violators are given a slap on the wrist and requested to fix things up.

Increasingly President Obama is so sure he alone knows what’s best that he’s ignoring reality. Realities such as real-world problems from too much cost to unreliable performance of green energy that has made many such companies go bankrupt ($535 million in Fed money to Solyndra).

Or, the Home Affordable Refinance Program deemed a failure in terms of the small percentage of homeowners assisted through the program. Or the reality that the answer to US citizen unemployment is not to make it easier to hire illegal immigrants.

This is the same MO we’re seeing with flawed programs all over the Federal government. Now understand, HIPAA PREDATES President Obama. But HIPAA, according to the standard of what percentage of people in need are having their complaints addressed by the HIPAA OCR for a remedy is a flop.

Instead of saving money by going through this costly and ineffective program and either doing away with it or slashing it, President Obama is expanding HIPAA’s role in his push for electronic health records. (In addition to financially incentivizing healthcare provider adoption of such records).

Instead of drastically cutting HIPAA which is by its own admission at best only responsive about one fifth of the time and knowing that the majority of the time violators are slapped and told to go fix problems which does little for your leaked health information, we’ve got the HITECH act encouraging people to jump on the electronic health records bandwagon.

Much like the housing legislation, more money is being thrown at HIPAA. In 2012 the OCR got an increase of $5.62 million for the Office for Civil Rights to enforce HIPAA Privacy and Security, http://abouthipaa.com/hipaa-hitech-news/ocr-requests-5-62m-for-hipaa-hitech-enforcement/.

The reality being ignored by the push for electronic health records is that online information is frequently breached and that HIPAA and the OCR provide few remedies for individuals whose privacy is breached and that those few remedies are currently only imposed about one-fifth of the time.