Where Is Patient Consent in the Government’s New National Health Data-Sharing System?

ST. PAUL, Minn. — Citizens’ Council for Health Freedom (CCHF) co-founder and president Twila Brase, author of the award-winning book Big Brother in the Exam Room, provides the following statement on the recent public-private health data-sharing partnership:

“Last Tuesday, Big Government and Big Data publicly joined hands to end patient privacy in America. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services inked a public-private deal with five entities to establish a national health data-sharing system that does not have the consent of the governed.

“These private partners, whose businesses were funded by the government or facilitated by federal mandates, include the federally-built eHealth Exchange, Epic Nexus, a subsidiary of Epic, the nation’s largest electronic health record system; Health Gorilla, an interoperability platform that began collaborating with the government in 2016; and two interoperability and connectivity partners: KONZA National Network and MedAllies.

“Americans have long been duped into believing the so-called federal HIPAA privacy rule protects their medical privacy when it does the exact opposite. HIPAA, a permissive data-sharing rule, was a deliberate deception engineered by the federal government and the data-hungry private sector, which sought to profit from unconsented access to volumes of personal data surrendered by patients when they’re at their most vulnerable.

“This federal health data-sharing system will share patient data broadly, allowing outside access without the knowledge or consent of patients. Fresh second opinions will be a thing of the past. Biases will be baked into medical record systems. Patients will no longer be able to have frank discussions with their doctors for fear of who might be able to see their confidential conversations. National security is also at risk. The sensitive data in medical records will be a rich target for hackers from countries like China and Russia.

“CCHF calls upon state legislators to end the federal government’s intrusive and unconstitutional health data-sharing system and restore real medical privacy and consent rights to American patients nationwide.”