Protected to Death: How Medical Privacy Laws Helped Kill 25,000 People
29th June 2012
Privacy. Everybody talks about it. Grandstanding politicians make plenty of loud noises in the general direction of the internet, disparaging it for turning your perusal of Kim Kardashian-related articles into targeted ads for breast enhancement surgery and Kanye West tickets. Of course, while these politicians are making all this noise about your privacy, they’re quietly signing off on efforts allowing them to sneak in the backdoor and raid your browser history.
Putting the government in charge of your privacy has never been a great idea. When HIPAA was enacted, its privacy requirements greatly affected the medical community. Like many regulatory acts, HIPAA both raised costs (additional paperwork and other compliance factors) and lowered quality (negatively affecting retrospective research and curtailing proactive follow up care).