by Tina Grazier
<font color=brown>Note to Libby…I’m going to be all over the road on this one.
Most of you will recall the uproar over a national defense program GWB instituted to glean information from suspected terrorists plotting with each other to kill Americans. Warrantless wiretapping, as it was derisively called, was used by the government to monitor terror activity. When a suspicious phone call was detected, the “warrantless” option allowed the government to take advantage of a passing opportunity which would be lost if they waited to obtain a warrant in the usual fashion. Legal measures were part of the plan, and the general public’s private calls were not monitored, but no matter…the left went NUTS! “How dare the president invade the privacy of Americans,” they protested, “by ‘listening in’ on our private phone calls!” He didn’t, of course, but that didn’t stop protesters and the media from having hissy fits.
As an aside, you should know we were treated only to the sound of silence when President Obama adopted and expanded defense of the wiretapping program:
Obama Administration’s brief contends that government agencies cannot be sued for wiretapping American citizens even if there was intentional violation of US law. They maintain that the government can only be sued if the wiretaps involve “willful disclosure” — a higher legal bar. ** “A ‘willful violation’ in Section 223(c(1) refers to the ‘willful disclosure’ of intelligence information by government agents, as described in Section 223(a)(3) and (b)(3), and such disclosures by the Government are the only actions that create liability against the United States,” Obama Assistant Attorney General Michael Hertz wrote.
Since January…only silence!
OK…back to the subject at hand…
Fast-forward to the current health care proposals and debate. Have you noticed that your personal privacy means absolutely nothing now? Now private health information and health decisions, not to mention gender, socioeconomic status, race, location, disability, etc, are all the governments businesses…no problemo!
One piece of legislation suggests that all seniors should be visited and counseled periodically by a government social worker on healthcare decisions. Other plans call for a giant database to track trends and treatment effectiveness and to determine (mandate) the treatments your doctor will be authorized to offer you. One fascinating bit of language even suggests that the Health and Human Services Secretary shall “develop standards for the measurement of gender”.
HUH? …Funny that’s basically what Secretary Sebelius said:
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius says she has “no idea” about a section of the Senate health-care reform bill that requires her to “develop standards for the measurement of gender”–as opposed to simply relying on “male” and “female”–for use in a new federal database that will collect information about all beneficiaries of government-run or government-supported health care programs. ** The purpose of the database is to allow the government “to detect and monitor trends in health disparities” between different groups in the U.S. population ** The language mandating the database is on pages 410-414 of the bill. The specific requirement for the HHS secretary to develop “standards for the measurement of gender” says: “In collecting data described in paragraph (1), the Secretary or designee shall–(A) use Office of Management and Budget standards, at a minimum, for race and ethnicity measures; (B) develop standards for the measurement of gender, geographic location, socioeconomic status, primary language and disability measures.” ** “I have no idea what you are talking about–measuring gender,” Sebelius said. “I’m sorry. I’m not trying to be elusive.”
I don’t blame her for being confused. Who knows what this legislation might mean in terms of our privacy…freedom…life…choice…in the years ahead? Who knows whether or not collection of this data could result in heavy fines or even jail for doctors or other health professionals who have failed to meet quotas for treatment of certain genders or races. In fact….
A quick search on the web uncovered another possible clue as to an underlying reason for this nutty language in an American health care bill. The information will likely be transfered or reported to the UN:
Why is there a need for gender-sensitive measurements? How can we measure improvements in hard-to-measure areas such as empowerment or gender based violence? What are the uses and limits of international measurements? This document provides an overview of the presentations and discussion points of the expert panel discussion on gender sensitive indicators and measurements of change at the 51st session of the Commission on the Status of Women undertaken by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Bureau for Development Policy (BDP) Gender Team and BRIDGE at the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) in March 2007.
Come to think about it…the United Nations could well be the driving force behind the idea for a BIG GOVERNMENT DATABASE, a measure that this administration insists is so vital for savings in health care.
Let us not forget, Obama the candidate was in favor of a single payer, universal health care program.
“If I were designing a system from scratch, I would probably go ahead with a single-payer system,” Obama told some 1,800 people at a town-hall style meeting on the economy.”
See and hear him say it at another event on YouTube
No matter what all of this means in the near future what it will accomplish is a loss of privacy and freedom. I think we should reject this progressive plan and resolve to instead repair the few things that need fixing in our health care industry. Cutting costs, availability, portability and tort reform are a good place to start. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I’ll continue to keep an ear out for the howling protests about this president stomping all over our PRIVACY RIGHTS…
privacy rights…
privacy rights…
…is that just an echo?
Darn tootin!