kept private, you had best seek treatment in another country.
Yes, I know Joe Barton is an asshole but he is dead right to kick the administration's ass on this issue.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=uOk0vOup4yA
The federal government has said, "You have no reasonable expectation of privacy."
Before everyone goes gang tackling Obama though, you should understand that Rick Perry has a medical board that can rifle through your chart without your consent as well. This goes on all the time.
You can be sure government, both Republican and Democrat alike, is going to blame health care providers when it itself screws up. And that is what HIPAA (and Texas has its own version of HIPAA) truly is, a dumping of privacy issues on health care providers when government does whatever it wants. It is a classic distraction issue.
The debate about socialized medicine then is over. We already have it. If a patient has a problem with provider, the provider loses one person. If government has a problem with a provider, it can take away all the patients. It is only logical than that health care providers are going to be treating the government first and patients second.
If you want your medical records to be kept private or have your interests put over government's, you had best go to another country. Anyone involved in the medical tourism industry should be sending Obama a huge gift of thanks.