Personal Privacy

The unrelenting assault on personal privacy on behalf of corporate interests is rapidly becoming the single greatest threat to personal freedom and autonomy in the upcoming century. The latest egregious attack is included in the House bill overhauling the financial services industry (“House Approves Disclosure of Private Medical Records,” July 2). Under an amendment slipped into the massive legislative bill by Rep. Greg Ganske (R-Iowa), individual medical records could be disclosed without prior authorization to financial institutions, including credit card companies.

Ganske, a physician, labeled this a “medical confidentiality provision”! Perhaps the citizens of Iowa can rest a little easier with Ganske in Washington rather than in his office in Des Moines. Unfortunately, the rest of us cannot.

RICHARD P. FOX MD

President-Elect, American

Psychoanalytic Assn., Tustin

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Your July 1 editorial on medical privacy is wrong. The medical privacy provisions in HR 10 will not preempt state privacy laws or allow insurance companies to sell medical information to drug companies as has been alleged by opponents of this provision in the bill. Nor would the legislation block the secretary of Health and Human Services from issuing privacy regulations as required by current law.

HR 10’s medical privacy language will require insurers to obtain specific authorization before sharing personal medical information either within or without a financial services company. Absent these protections there is concern that an insurance company within a financial services company would inappropriately share medical information with, say, its banking arm in order to deny loans to those with AIDS, for example. Currently, there are no real medical privacy protections when it comes to these new financial institutions. It is imperative that as Congress moves ahead with reforming the statutory framework of our financial system, we protect consumer privacy.

Both of us plan to continue working on privacy language in conference with the Senate to ensure that each of these points is fully clarified. We want to see comprehensive medical privacy language become law.

REP. GREG GANSKE

R-Iowa

REP. DAVID DREIER

R-San Dimas