Stop Pushing Health Data Online, It Doesn’t Reduce Costs or Improve Care

ST. PAUL, Minn. –Michael Grunwald recently wrote in Healthcare IT News that health IT was one of the most transformative programs promoted by President Obama’s $27 billion Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health – or HITECH – Act within the Recovery Act. By computerizing medical data under the guise of cost control and improved healthcare delivery, the U.S. government has been able to implement what HHS Secretary Sebelius called the “foundation” for Obamacare. 

New Virtual "Baby DNA" Repository Enables New Breaches in Privacy and Rights

ST. PAUL, Minn. – In yet another federal over-reach that breaches parental rights, the Newborn Screening Translational Research Network (NBSTRN) announced last week that it had developed a centralized, virtual, web-based repository of newborns’ DNA, obtained through dried blood spots. DNA samples are collected from infants at birth and often saved, stored, and used for research without the knowledge or consent of an infant’s parents.

Lawsuit Against IRS Highlights Government Overreach of Affordable Care Act

ST. PAUL, Minn. – Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt filed an amended complaint to his lawsuit against the Affordable Care Act, alleging that a new IRS rule violates the Administrative Procedures Act and conflicts with the Affordable Care Act.

CCHF Urges States to Protect Citizens’ Health Information

ST. PAUL, Minn. – The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) announced earlier this month it will not regulate the nationwide health information network, or NHIN, through formal rule-making, instead offering “a framework of principles and good practice models” to help guide deployment without hindering the implementation. The NHIN is designed to share patient health data among insurers and all types of health providers that an individual may seek treatment from. The nationwide network will interact with all state and individual provider networks, to....

CCHF to Present Written Testimony to U.S. House

ST. PAUL, Minn. – On Wednesday, September 12, 2012, the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Ways and Means and its subcommittee on health will hold a hearing to learn more about the state implementation of health insurance exchanges. The Committee outlined in a hearing advisory that, without final guidelines from the Obama Administration on such issues as mandated benefits packages, expected enrollee costs, and other exchange-related information, uncertainty “threatens to saddle stakeholders with higher costs and also increases the risk of waste, fraud, and abuse.

Are the Feds Forcing Citizens to Accept Medicare?

ST. PAUL, Minn. – On August 24, 2012, a group of plaintiffs petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to hear their case, which alleges that the federal government is forcing citizens to accept Medicare Part A coverage, sometimes against their will. Using a rule-making manual called POMS... the Federal Government insists that any citizen who voluntarily turns down Medicare benefits must also be denied Social Security benefits earned throughout their lifetime of work, and that any Social Security benefits received must be paid back to the government upon denial of Medicare.

CCHF Outlines True Reform

The Real Reasons to Say No to State Healthcare Exchanges

ST. PAUL, Minn. – Many states continue to move toward implementation of the centerpiece of the Affordable Care Act: state healthcare exchanges. But as these implementations continue, there are four major issues impacting both individual patient/taxpayers as well as state legislators.

CCHF: Exchange Data Sharing Promotes Major Privacy Intrusions

ST. PAUL, Minn. – KEY FACTS:
•    Minnesota currently leads state health insurance exchange implementation with its recently signed, $41 million contract with Maximus, Inc.
•    Contract details follow federal regulations and provide a glimpse at what information must be shared based on the law.
•    Information shared with federal agencies by state health insurance exchanges based on the Enroll UX 2014 initiative is intrusive and compromises patient privacy.

State Exchanges: A Ruse for National Registration of Insurance Status

ST. PAUL, M.N. – As states begin to process and plan for the implementation of “American Health Benefit Exchanges,” otherwise known as state health exchanges, the reality of the end of personal health privacy is being realized by individual citizens. The Citizens' Council for Health Freedom has produced a detailed diagram that shows exactly how each individual state exchange is connected back to the federal government, creating a federal registration system that involves every American.