Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. At least so its says in some document under glass in the Smithsonian. First item on the list = life. A good life is synonymous with good health. This essay is not about Medicare for All/Single Payer (MFA/SP) but deals with today's nightmare, surveillance state scenarios.

First we have the mollifying "explanations" for certain actions, and then analysis of what all this really means.

First we start with a little background. HIPAA = Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. Probably one of the best things Bubba ever did was to not veto this act.

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA; Pub.L. 104–191, 110 Stat. 1936, enacted August 21, 1996) was enacted by the United States Congress and signed by President Bill Clinton in 1996. It has been known as the Kennedy–Kassebaum Act or Kassebaum–Kennedy Act after two of its leading sponsors.[1][2] The Act consists of five Titles. Title I of HIPAA protects health insurance coverage for workers and their families when they change or lose their jobs.[3] Title II of HIPAA, known as the Administrative Simplification (AS) provisions, requires the establishment of national standards for electronic health care transactions and national identifiers for providers, health insurance plans, and employers.[4] Title III sets guidelines for pre-tax medical spending accounts, Title IV sets guidelines for group health plans, and Title V governs company-owned life insurance policies.

Title 1 is the most important for both physicians and patients:

1 Titles
1.1 Title I: Health Care Access, Portability, and Renewability
1.2 Title II: Preventing Health Care Fraud and Abuse; Administrative Simplification; Medical Liability Reform
1.2.1 Privacy Rule
1.2.1.1 2013 Final Omnibus Rule Update
1.2.1.1.1 HITECH Act: Privacy Requirements
1.2.1.2 Right to access your PHI
1.2.1.3 Disclosure to relatives
1.2.2 Transactions and Code Sets Rule
1.2.2.1 Brief 5010 Transactions and Code Sets Rules Update Summary
1.2.3 Security Rule
1.2.4 Unique Identifiers Rule (National Provider Identifier)
1.2.5 Enforcement Rule
1.3 Title III: Tax-related health provisions governing medical savings accounts
1.4 Title IV: Application and enforcement of group health insurance requirements
1.5 Title V: Revenue offset governing tax deductions for employers

From personal experience as a practicing physician, HIPAA scared the bejeezus out of many physicians fearing federal penalties, possibly including imprisonment. Now most physicians on the front lines = actual patient care are not attorneys, nor do they have time to research all the minutiae of regulatory prose. Thus, I, like others, tip-toed quietly when confronted with patient information transfer. I plead guilty for falling for all the below-cited myths.

11 myths about HIPAA and medical records

Listed are the 11 myths, some of which may seem abstruse and remote from your health--but not when you're in fear of imprisonment and financial penalties against the care givers, not just physicians.

1. Myth: HIPAA Prevents Sharing of Information With Family Members

2. Myth: Only Patients or Caregivers May Get Copies of Health Records

3. Myth: Employers Are Payers, and Can Gain Access to an Employee's Records

4. Myth: HIPAA Laws Prevent Doctors From Exchanging Email With Their Patients

5. Myth: Providers Are Required by Law to Provide All Medical Records to You

6. Myth: Patients Denied Access to Their Records May Sue to Get Copies

7. Myth: HIPAA Laws Cover Privacy and Security for All Medical Records

8. Myth: Providers Are Required to Correct Any Errors Found in Patient Records

9. Myth: Your Health and Medical Records Cannot Affect Your Credit Records

10. Myth: Medical Information Cannot Be Legally Sold or Used for Marketing

11. Myth: HIPAA Can Be Used as an Excuse

Okay, what's important for patients and families?

Who gets copies of Health Records (HR)?

many other individuals and organizations that can access a patient's medical records without a patient's permission, some legally and some illegally.

Personal medical information can be obtained by anyone who helps you pay for your health care, from insurance to the government to your employer.
It can also be obtained by anyone who wants to buy it, although it may be aggregated and de-identified when it's purchased.
And sometimes it's either stolen or given away by mistake.

Notice that commercial use may disaggregate your information from any identifying personal identification. Sounds good, huh? Not so fast, there. But let's move on.

Can your medical information be sold or used for marketing?

these rules are also confusing to providers. That means these rights may get violated, whether that is intentional or unintentional.

An example of when information can be shared for marketing purposes is when a hospital uses its patient list to inform you of a new service it provides, a new doctor who has joined the staff, or a fundraising program.

An example of when information cannot be shared without an additional authorization from you is when an insurer who has obtained your information from one of your providers, then uses or sells your information to sell you additional insurance, or another product related to services you have already received.

You can see how these examples are confusing, and how the various entities that do have access to your records might take advantage of that confusion.

There are many other ways your medical information is sold and used for marketing purposes, too.

Repeat:

An example of when information cannot be shared without an additional authorization from you is when an insurer who has obtained your information from one of your providers, then uses or sells your information to sell you additional insurance, or another product related to services you have already received.

Reading between the lines: This information sharing preclusion applies to an insurer. FB is not an insurer.

Enter Dr. Zuckerberg.

Facebook tried to access and match medical data.

The [CNBC] network’s report says Facebook approached “several major U.S. hospitals to share anonymized data about their patients, such as illnesses and prescription info, for a proposed research project.”

Facebook apparently planned to use hashing to keep its users’ records and hospital data discrete, but intended to match profiles in order to suggest approaches to care.

Health care is mighty expensive to deliver, so data that makes it more effective is welcome. And if a timely intervention can save or prolong a life, that’s priceless.

But Facebook has repeatedly blundered when caring for data, with yesterday’s admission it allowed years of utterly-foreseeable profile scraping through automated phone number and email address lookups just the latest extraordinary SNAFU. The prospect of medical data in the company’s hands is therefore extremely worrying.

Some of the many faults in FB's data grab attempt go beyond mere marketing, even "personalized" marketing. One simple instance is to find out if you take a statin, then you will be advertised a different statin. But such intrusion might not be limited to statin substitution but to various alternatives to statins, some of which may be definitely disadvantageous to your health. Other such treatment program interventions abound.

The ultimate invasion of health privacy

Abilify combined with computer chip.

This article outlines a supposedly well-intentioned program to ensure medication compliance, currently with a new form of Abilify, one of the leading anti-psychotics and anti-mania drugs.

The article deals with strictly medical issues concerning such chip usage, which is beyond the scope of this essay. Abilify is quite potent, often without significant side-effects. This completely ignores the dark side of such a device. With ingested microchips, those who know your medications, know when and how much medication you're taking. Enter the Thought Police. Instead of sending John or Jane Doe to a "psychiatric" facility, the PTB can simply ensure that you are taking a large enough dose to be zombified, thus rendered less of a threat. In fact enough Abilify or similar antipsychotics can cause permanent debilitation, rendering a political activist incapable of simple life functions (Parkinsonian-like motor and mental side-effects being the most potent).

If this outrageous assault on personal freedom in the form of health data mining is not checked, we will find ourselves physically manipulated as well as brainwashed with approved propaganda.

This scheme is theoretically available from many so-called social media site with sufficient software support. Twitter in not your friend--nor is Google, Amazon--and definitely NOT FB.

So here Dr Zuckerberg is my message:

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZMmV6xXYFw]