ST. PAUL, Minn. — Citizens’ Council for Health Freedom (CCHF) provides the following statement:
“CCHF is celebrating a large but little-known win at the Minnesota legislature. A small but critical bipartisan bill is expected to become law. Under the bill, longstanding patient consent rights of Minnesotans will soon be restored.
“In October 2023, the Minnesota Supreme Court claimed in Schneider v Children’s Health Care that the language of Minnesota’s medical privacy law (144.293) allows the state law’s consent rights to be superseded by the permissive-sharing provisions of the federal HIPAA rule.
“The legislature disagreed and said so with strong bipartisan votes to protect patient privacy rights in Minnesota. Authored in the House by state Representative Tina Liebling (D-Rochester) and in the Minnesota Senate by state Senator Warren Limmer (R-Maple Grove), the original bill (HF 3443 / SF 4199) passed all its committee stops and was sent to the floor by both the House and the Senate. It was then amended onto the Health and Human Services omnibus bill (SF 4699), which was then added to the more than 2800-page omnibus Tax bill (HF 5247). The passage of this language restores over three decades of patient consent rights.
“Thanks to Minnesota state Representative Liebling, Minnesota state Senator Limmer, and their many coauthors, the Minnesota Health Records Act, the strongest medical privacy law in the nation – the law which protects citizens from the widespread sharing of confidential data authorized by HIPAA – will soon be restored.”
Media Contact: For further inquiries or interviews with CCHF policy staff, please contact Kristin Matheny at media@cchfreedom.org.
