Mighty handy for totalitarianism 132

Consider this:

216 of the [‘Stimulus’ Act’s] 1,071 pages deal with a project not directly aimed at short-term economic stimulus, and these 216 pages were themselves divided into two distinct parts (139 pages in "Division A" of the law and 77 pages in "Division B").

Together, these 216 pages provide the legal framework for collecting every American’s personal medical records into a federally coordinated electronic system…

Division A includes a section called "Title XIII – Health Information Technology," which provides for "the development of a nationwide health information technology infrastructure."

In the law’s jargon, this infrastructure is supposed to allow for the "enterprise integration" of the "qualified electronic health record" of "each person in the United States by 2014."

What do "qualified electronic health record" and "enterprise integration" mean? A "qualified electronic health record," the law says, "means an electronic record of health-related information on an individual that – (A) includes patient demographic and clinical health information, such as medical history and problems lists; and (B) has the capacity – (i) to provide clinical decision support; (ii) to support physician order entry; (iii) to capture and query information relevant to health care quality; and (iv) to exchange electronic health information with, and integrate such information from other sources."

This mandate that your "electronic health record" (EHR) be able to communicate with "other sources" goes to the definition of "enterprise integration." This term, the law says, "means the electronic linkage of health care providers, health plans, the government and other interested parties to enable electronic exchange and use of health information among all the components in the health care infrastructure in accordance with applicable law." …

In plain English: Over the next five years, the Obama administration intends to create a federally run electronic exchange that includes every American’s "medical history and problems lists."

‘Other sources’ can include data held by any government department – the IRS for instance. A total dossier of information about you will be available to any bureaucrat at any moment with a click or two This is a tool for totalitarianism that Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot would have envied.  

Read the Terence Jeffrey column we are quoting here. 

Posted under Commentary by Jillian Becker on Wednesday, February 18, 2009

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