Leahy Holds Hearing On Protecting American’s Health Privacy
WASHINGTON (Tuesday, Jan. 27, 2009) – The Senate Judiciary Committee
Tuesday morning held a hearing to examine ways to protect American’s
personal privacy as the country moves towards a national health
information technology system. Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) has
worked to secure privacy protections in health care reform legislation,
and introduced legislation in the last Congress to strengthen privacy
protections in health IT. Leahy’s full statement follows.
Witness testimony and a live webcast of the hearing are
available online.
Statement of Senator Patrick Leahy
Chairman, Senate Judiciary Committee
Hearing on “Health IT: Protecting Americans’ Privacy in the Digital Age”
January 27, 2009
Today, the Committee holds an important hearing on how best to protect
Americans’ health privacy rights as the Nation moves towards a national
health IT system. I have long held the view that American
innovation can – and should – play a vital role in improving our
Nation’s health care system. That is why I am pleased that
President Obama has called for the immediate investment in health
information technology; so that all of America’s medical records are
computerized within five years.
In America today, if you have a health record, you have a health privacy
problem. The explosion of electronic health records, digital
databases, and the Internet is fueling a growing supply of and demand
for Americans’ health information.
The ability to easily access this information electronically – often by
the click of a mouse, or a few key strokes on a computer – can be very
useful in providing more cost-effective health care. But, the use
of advancing technologies to access and share health information can
also lead to a loss of personal privacy.
Without adequate safeguards to protect health privacy, many Americans
will simply not seek the medical treatment that they need for fear that
their sensitive health information will be disclosed without their
consent. And those who do seek medical treatment assume the risk
of data security breaches and other privacy violations. Likewise,
health care
providers who
perceive the privacy risks associated with health IT systems as
inconsistent with their professional obligations will avoid
participating in a national health IT system.
In my state of Vermont, we have formed a
public-private partnership that is charged with developing
Vermont's statewide electronic health information system, including a
policy on privacy. I believe that in order for
a national health IT system to
succeed, we in Congress should follow Vermont’s good example and work
together with public and private stakeholders to ensure the privacy and
security of electronic health records. That is why I
have worked very hard for more than a decade with Senator Kennedy – a
tireless champion of health IT – many other Members of Congress on both
sides of the aisle, and numerous stakeholders in the public and private
sectors, to craft bipartisan health privacy legislation. I will continue
to work on this pressing issue during the 111th Congress.
Recently, some have suggested that addressing privacy in health IT
legislation is too hard and that Congress should simply put off this
issue for another day. But, without meaningful privacy safeguards,
our Nation’s health IT system will fail its citizens.
In his inaugural address, President Obama eloquently noted that in our
new era of responsibility “there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit,
so defining of our character than giving our all to a difficult task.”
Today’s hearing is an important step towards tackling the difficult, but
essential task of ensuring meaningful health information privacy for all
Americans.
The first hearing that I held when I resumed the Chairmanship at the
start of the last Congress was a hearing on privacy and, once again, one
of the Committee’s first hearings for this new Congress is on privacy.
We have a distinguished panel of privacy experts, government officials
and consumer advocates to help us examine this issue. I thank all
of our witnesses for appearing today and I look forward to a productive
discussion.
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