Unelected Bureaucrats Confiscate Your Property and Your Private Medical Records Without Your Consent

Posted on April 22, 2012 by admin

By Elizabeth Lee Vliet, MD,

October 2011 brought an overlooked but devastating ruling by the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), an unelected bureaucrat, to further damage your Constitutional rights. Kathleen Sebelius decreed that all private health insurance companies must turn over to the federal government their medical records on all patients insured by them to be included in the federal health information database without patients’ consent.

The traditional American view is that you, the patient, are the owner of the information in your medical records that reside with your personal physician. You control to whom your information is released. Under the new Sebelius ruling, the government will control your medical information on federal computers in a federal database. Thus, your personal medical information is open to anyone with access to the system.

Traditionally, doctors released information only with the patient’s specific consent, which was often given as a condition for getting an insurer to pay. Americans have always had the right to pay for medical care themselves and not allow the doctor to release their medical records and personal information to an insurance company.

The October ruling has not gotten the press attention that it deserves. Besides violating other fundamental liberty rights, it violates the 5th Amendment to the Constitution, which states that “No person…shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process…nor shall private property, be taken for public use, without just compensation.”

With the HHS new rules for medical records, your personal property of your medical information is simply being taken by the government to be used for “the collective, or public, good” without compensation to you for the use of your data.

Worse, your own data may be used to keep you from getting treatments you and your doctor think you need! The federally run Comparative Effectiveness Research bureaucracy and Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB) will use this data to decide how to allocate finite medical resources. The Progressive view is that medical decisions should be made by elite, unelected, politically-appointed “experts” whose focus is on “population health,” not your health or your life.

These bureaucrats’ job is to ration medical care, not based on individual needs, but on government criteria, such as: cost of treatment effectiveness as determined by government experts, not necessarily medical specialists, and your “quality life years” remaining, based on your age or your “value” to society.

Beyond privacy issues, there is major concern about the safety of your medical information. An expanded federal medical database makes millions more people vulnerable to loss of health information and medical identity. Hackers stole millions of medical records from the Veterans Administration and patients were at risk for identity theft. David Blumenthal, M.D., the former “health information czar,” admitted “No infrastructure exists in most areas of the country for secure exchange of health information exchange among providers and between providers and consumers.”

The federal government has now expanded beyond the capability of its employees to manage their responsibilities properly. Our Founders knew that if we allowed such vast expansion of federal authority, it would make eunuchs of state and local governments… which actually better met the needs of local communities. People would wait for Washington to satisfy our every need. We are already learning the wisdom of their concerns, for example, in the failure of the federal government

to properly regulate our financial institutions,
to efficiently run the Postal Service without hemorrhaging red ink,
to effectively administer programs such as veteran’s health care, Medicare, and Medicaid to keep costs under control,
to improve quality and improve access to medical care, and
to control Medicare and Medicaid fraud.

It is particularly dangerous to have government bureaucrats control our health information and treatment options. Do we really need to suffer more lives lost just to gain more proof that big government control and central planning does not work?

We have no voice in the regulation of our medical care by unelected bureaucrats. Instead of taxation without representation, wenow have medication without representation.

Confiscation of your medical records property is another example that when something is “free,” the real cost to you is staggering.

Elizabeth Lee Vliet, M.D. is a preventive and climacteric medicine specialist with medical practices in Tucson AZ and Dallas TX that take an integrated approach to evaluation and treatment of women and men with complex medical and hormonal problems. Dr. Vliet is also President of International Health Strategies, Ltd., whose mission is twofold: liberty and privacy in treatment options and preservation of the Oath of Hippocrates focus on the individual patient. Dr. Vliet is the 2007 recipient of the Voice of Women award from the Arizona Foundation for Women for her pioneering advocacy for the overlooked hormone connections in women’s health. Dr. Vliet received her M.D. degree and internship in Internal Medicine at Eastern Virginia Medical School, then completed specialty training at Johns Hopkins Hospital. Dr. Vliet is a Director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons. Dr. Vliet has appeared on FOX NEWS, Cavuto, Stuart Varney Show, Fox and Friends and syndicated radio shows across the country addressing the economic and medical impact of the new healthcare bill. Dr. Vliet’s books include: It’s My Ovaries, Stupid!; Screaming To Be Heard: Hormonal Connections Women Suspect– And Doctors STILL Ignore; Women, Weight and Hormones; The Savvy Woman’s Guide to PCOS, The Savvy Woman’s Guide to Testosterone. Dr. Vliet’s medical and educational website is http://www.HerPlace.com.

Two Years of ObamaCare False Promises, Worse Harm to Come

Posted on March 29, 2012 by admin

By Elizabeth Lee Vliet, M.D.,

Two years ago, on March 23, 2010, the new healthcare law was signed into being so that “we could all see what is in the bill,” as Nancy Pelosi promised. Other promises repeated over and over by its backers and the media: “You can keep your doctor.” “The new law will bend the cost curve downwards.” “Health insurance will be more affordable.” “No one will have to violate his/her conscience.” “The new law will not add to the deficit.”

Two years have given us time to see what’s in the bill. It is an ugly picture indeed. The promises all turned out to be empty rhetoric. Worse than just false promises, however, are the actual harms already done, and worse harms on the way.

Since Sir Thomas Sydenham in the 1600s, medicine’s tradition has been “First, do no harm.” If a “treatment” may cause more damage than doing nothing, it is often better to do nothing.

Instead, this bill does more of harmful things. The federal government has been put in charge of every medical decision that exists:

type of insurance you must purchase OR pay a penalty,
what the insurance must pay for,
what insurance can cost,
what medical specialists will be reimbursed and at what rates,
what treatments are allowed, and for whom, at what age,
what medical screening tests are approved or not approved,
who may or may not own hospitals,
what taxes are imposed on individuals, businesses, medical device makers, and pharmaceutical companies.

Some harms have already happened:

Health insurance premiums up 9% in 2010, another 9% in 2011, and more increases ahead;
Loss of patients’ privacy and control of their personal medical records, when the Secretary of Health and Human Services ruled in October 2011 that all private medical insurance companies must send all patient data to Washington’s central database—without the patient’s permission;
Jobs lost and new ones not created because employers cannot afford higher premiums to pay for all of the “free” services the government now requires;
Medicare facing cuts of $500 billion to pay for medical care for younger people in Medicaid;
Loss of medical specialists in many fields due to fee cuts;
Higher taxes on medical devices, which in turn are passed on to consumers;
A massive increase in the projected deficit as the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) now has doubled the estimate of cost it gave before the bill was passed.

The “Affordable Care Act” is not affordable at all: it is now estimated to cost $1.76 trillion over the next decade, adding markedly to the U.S. debt.

More harms are still to come. Doctors will be driven out of business by costly new rules. Insurance companies will close because they can’t cover the new mandates. Private options for medical care and health insurance won’t exist. New drugs and treatments will not be developed because of more taxes and regulations. Rationing of care will begin as costs rise, budgets are depleted, and fewer doctors are there to see patients.

In the ultimate hypocrisy, the President, who has forbidden Catholics and others to exercise their own right of conscience in choosing the insurance they provide, is now, according to the New York Times, using taxpayer dollars for “an aggressive campaign…to build support for the new healthcare law…(with) a prayer vigil…outside the Supreme Court…beginning March 26.”

Government-controlled medicine is a singular threat to Americans’ liberty and tradition of religious and medical freedom. Currently, about 49 percent of Americans depend on some type of federal government benefit. With the new healthcare law, it will be 100 percent of Americans dependent on the government.

The 2010 healthcare law is a massive power grab to control your money, your medical treatment options, your businesses, your liberty, and ultimately your life. If government-controlled healthcare is allowed to stand, it is the end of freedom in America.

It is time for the new law to die before it kills American medicine, American patients, American liberty, and the American economy. Instead, we need true reform that puts the power and freedom back into the hands of patients and their physicians.

A Doctor Speaks Out: 2010 Health Care Law vs. The Constitution & Declaration of Independence

Posted on March 11, 2012 by admin

Arizona physician, Elizabeth Lee Vliet, MD, explains that the new health care law is in direct opposition to our founding documents and abrogates our individual rights. Liberty to decide our own medical care is the very freedom our founders intended when they set the framework to protect us from an over-intrusive government.

Your Medical Privacy–Another Obamacare Casualty

Posted on October 24, 2011 by admin

By: Elizabeth Lee Vliet, M.D.

It was a sad day recently when a married menopausal woman learned that her recent Pap test was positive for human papilloma virus (HPV). “How could this happen?” she asked. “I have not had sex with anyone but my husband since we married 30 years ago.”

Over the past year, her husband had several trips overseas for weeks at the time. She suspected the positive HPV indicated he had been unfaithful, but when she asked him, he said, “Oh, it can be latent for a long time.”

I showed her my records from 2008 and 2009: Paps were HPV negative. Her newly positive HPV likely means her husband had had sex with an infected person during his travels. She broke down weeping.

HPV is an increasingly prevalent sexually transmitted disease that can hit women of all ages and increases the risk of invasive cervical cancer—another reason she was upset about becoming HPV positive. She now faced hard decisions. As she left, I felt sad watching her suffer with the impact of this news on her marriage.

This kind of painful situation happens daily in doctors’ offices. Such personal and private pain should remain between the patient, physician, and family.

My patients are horrified at the idea that such personal health information could be released to a government database, open to anyone with access to the system. But your privacy is another casualty of the damage caused by Obamacare’s new rules and regulations governing health professionals.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) recently released new federal regulation that requires private health insurance companies to give health records of every person they insure to the government.

Although government jargon in the HHS rules distracts from their real goal, the end result is clear: government bureaucrats would have access to the health records from all private insurance companies—including yours—whether you want them to or not.

Under the new rules, the Federal government will own and control your medical records, without your permission. The government will be your new “overlord” controlling your medical information on federal computers in a federal database. You will no longer be able to control who sees your medical information.

The most personal aspects of your life are slated to be sent to Washington by your private insurance carrier for all your medical visits. This provides individual medical data for the federally run Comparative Effectiveness Research coordinating panel of experts. This panel of government-appointed experts, copying the rationing approach in Britain, will decide what treatment is allowed for individuals, based on government criteria such as:

cost of treatment
effectiveness as determined by government experts
your “quality life years” remaining

Beyond privacy issues, there is major concern about safety of your medical information when hackers can penetrate even highly secure federal agency computers such as the Pentagon, VA, and Department of Defense. Hackers stole millions of medical records from the Veterans Administration, and patients were at risk for identity theft.

David Blumenthal, M.D., the President’s former “health information czar,” admitted that “no infrastructure exists in most areas of the country for secure health information exchange among providers and between providers and consumers.”

Medical privacy? The Obama administration’s health czars seem more concerned about power and control over your medical care than protection of your private medical information.

In summary, the Obamacare “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act” of 2010 and the “Stimulus Bill” of 2009 gave the federal government total control of very personal aspects of your life:

money that is currently in the private healthcare sector
your private personal and family health information
your access to timely medical care
the types of treatment you will be allowed to have, based on your age and value to society

If you value your privacy and freedom to choose your medical treatment, then you need to consider candidates in 2012 who vow to defund, dismantle, and repeal Obamacare. We need patient-centered reform that puts freedom back into our hands as our Founders intended. Ronald Reagan warned: Socialism begins with government control of medicine.

Dr. Vliet has appeared on FOX NEWS, Cavuto, Stuart Varney Show, Fox and Friends and syndicated radio shows across the country addressing the economic and medical impact of the new healthcare bill.

Dr. Vliet’s books include: It’s My Ovaries, Stupid!; Screaming To Be Heard: Hormonal Connections Women Suspect– And Doctors STILL Ignore; Women, Weight and Hormones; The Savvy Woman’s Guide to PCOS, The Savvy Woman’s Guide to Testosterone.

Dr. Vliet’s medical and educational website is http://www.HerPlace.com.

Premiums Up, Choices Down: The First Wave of Obamacare

Posted on October 4, 2011 by admin

By Elizabeth Lee Vliet, M.D.,

Kaiser Family Foundation just released further bad news about the poorly named Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”). American families facing a bad economy, high unemployment, and crashing home values now get hit with another cost increase: higher health insurance premiums that are rising more every year.

Obama’s campaign focused on “hope and change,” but I suspect these winds of “change” are ones that most Americans did not “hope” for, did not want, and would like to escape.

Look at the bleak facts:

In 2011, the annual health insurance premium for a family of four was pushed above $15,000 for the first time ever.

The 2011 annual health insurance premium was 31% higher than 2006, and 113% higher than in 2001.

Health insurance premiums were 9% higher in 2011 than in 2010. And the media says there is no inflation? Did your income go up 9% from 2010 to 2011? Not for the vast majority of Americans!

Hurricane Irene wreaked visible damage all along the Eastern seaboard this fall. The damage from Obamacare’s extensive new mandates and regulations is less visible, but no less damaging to individuals, families, businesses, and our overall economy. At least we had warning that Hurricane Irene was coming and could take steps to prepare and protect ourselves. But we were falsely promised that the hurricane named Obamacare would lower costs, improve access to health insurance, and “protect patients.” Even in this earliest stage, with only a fraction of the mandates implemented, we are seeing massive damage.

Obamacare advocates like to blame the “greedy” insurance companies. But most of the blame for higher premiums is directly caused by the Obamacare first wave of mandates and regulations.

As of the fall of 2010, all insurance policies must:

keep adult “children” up to age 26 on parents’ policies,
provide “free” preventive care and screenings for everyone
cover pre-existing medical conditions for children

Adding this coverage unavoidably means the policy will have to cost more.

Obamacare regulations already control practically every decision a private insurance company can make. It is only going to get worse as government “medicrats” micromanage every single aspect of insurance coverage.

When the government gets in the middle, it always costs more. Think hugely inflated prices for solar panels made by Solyndra. Think high-priced toilets when the Pentagon pays. Think $16 dollar muffins for government bureaucrats to eat at government conferences. The government is buying? Triple or quadruple the price!

As health insurance premiums spiral up at this rate, more and more families will be forced away from the private policies and into Medicaid. This is not an “unintended consequence.” The goal of this Administration, as Obama himself has said on tape, is to drive private insurers out of business when people are unable to afford the policies that are “Obamacare-compliant.” The end result is the “public option” of fully socialized medicine that was the intent all along. Obamacare will destroy the private sector in medicine and make people dependent on the federal government, with the federal bureaucrats controlling every aspect of your medical care.

Real reform would put Americans—instead of the government or the insurance company—back in the driver’s seat as patients and savvy consumers. Americans need to take back their rights, including the right to choose how, when, where, and with whom to seek medical care and health insurance. Only then will we see premiums start to decrease.

Patient power. Not government power. What a novel idea!

Dr. Vliet has appeared on FOX NEWS, Cavuto, Stuart Varney Show, Fox and Friends and syndicated radio shows across the country addressing the economic and medical impact of the new healthcare bill.

Dr. Vliet’s medical and educational website is http://www.HerPlace.com.

DISCLAIMER: Dr. Vliet speaks as an independent physician. Dr. Vliet has no financial ties to any health care system, pharmaceutical company, or health insurance plan. Her allegiance and advocacy is to and for patients.

Electronic Medical Records in the Age of Government Controlled Internet Kill Switches

Posted on February 16, 2011 by admin

By Elizabeth Lee Vliet, M.D.

Egypt’s crisis has raised alarms about national security and economic impact for Americans if regime change leads to an anti-US government controlling a strong ally in the Middle East. This crisis raises another more personal concern for Americans that has been overlooked by the national media: the security and availability of your electronic medical records in the event of a government-imposed “kill switch” for the Internet.

Many Americans still do not know that hidden in the February 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, known as the “Stimulus” bill, was a provision that by 2014, physicians, hospitals, and other medical settings are to implement electronic medical records keeping systems. In 2015, penalties will be levied against physicians and health care facilities that do not implement use of electronic medical records.

The government’s plan is that medical information from physician consults and other medical visits will be sent to the Federal Health Information Technology (HIT) bureau in Washington, D.C. to provide individual medical data for the federally run Comparative Effectiveness Research coordinating panel of experts. According to a provision also hidden in the “Stimulus” bill, this panel of government-appointed experts is designated with deciding what treatment is allowed for individuals, based on government criteria for both cost and effectiveness.

Why do the events happening in Egypt raise concerns about these provisions in the 2009 Stimulus Bill? Think about it. The authoritarian government in power in Egypt quickly realized that communication via the Internet was furthering the spread of the protest movement. Without warning, the Egyptian government suddenly shut down the Internet to stop protesters’ ability to organize rallies.

Of course, protesters’ communication was not the only communication that was interrupted with this draconian “kill switch.” Financial systems, such as on-line banking, ATMs, and wire transfers, were affected, along with hundreds of other businesses that could no longer communicate with other offices around the world.

Medical communication via the Internet also came to a halt. Suppose your local doctor or hospital Emergency Room must obtain your electronic medical record via the Internet from the Health Czar’s cyberspace “cloud,” with access controlled by Washington elites.

What happens to your ability to get rapid medical treatment if you find yourself in a medical emergency that occurs in the middle of a political crisis and the government has shut down the Internet? At that point, you will appreciate first hand the true tyranny of ObamaCzarCare.

The President already has the authority under the Emergency Powers Act to do just this, so it isn’t hard to take the next step and imagine what can happen to patients if we physicians only have access via the Internet to people’s electronic records.

I prefer the old fashioned paper medical records that are available to me and my patients 24/7 – even when monsoon storms knock out electricity and the computer is out, or we are hit with a high-altitude detonation of a nuclear device that generates an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) which knocks out all electronic systems, or our own government decides suddenly to implement an emergency internet “kill switch.”

Any of these scenarios could be life-threatening if you have a medical emergency and all your information is tied up in computer systems that are no longer accessible.

Paper has a purpose. Paper medical records also serve valuable functions, even in the computer and Internet age. I have grave concern about moving totally to electronic medical records as I watch the problems that occur with disruptions to Internet access – whatever the cause – and the problems that occur with breach of computer systems security to steal confidential information.

Remember the hacking of Pentagon and NASDAQ computer systems? Remember the massive Wikileaks confidential data dump on the web? How do you feel about this type of leak of your personal private medical information? David Blumenthal, M.D., the President’s former “health information czar,” acknowledged “No infrastructure exists in most areas of the country for secure health information exchange among providers and between providers and consumers.”

Medical privacy? Apparently it is more important, according to this administration’s health czars to achieve the government’s efficiency goals than to insure your personal medical information is kept between you and your physicians.

Many of us who work with patients every day are very worried about the potential for harm to patients under a system in which medical information is controlled by government-appointed central planners. Physicians need immediate access to critical information, and we also realize the sacred responsibility we have to keep our patients medical information private – both of these functions are potentially seriously harmed by government control of our health information.

Have the Obama Administration central planners really thought about the many potentially serious ramifications to having all our medical records concentrated in one place and accessible only via the Internet? Or, is that the unstated purpose of our new “ObamaCzarCare:” government-controlled health services and control of medical information?

By limiting your freedom to get the care you need, when you need it, and with whom you choose…and by infringing on your medical privacy, the government has ever-increasing control of your life.

Americans face many dangers that lie in government control of electronic medical records coupled with government control of access to communication via the Internet.

Just thinking about a government-controlled kill switch can make you ill.

DISCLAIMER: Dr. Vliet speaks as an independent physician, not as an official spokesperson for any organization. Dr. Vliet has no financial ties to any health care system, pharmaceutical company, or health insurance plan. Her allegiance and advocacy is to and for patients.

AAPS – The Voice for YOU, Not The Government!

Dr. Vliet is the 2007 recipient of the Voice of Women award from the Arizona Foundation for Women for her pioneering advocacy for the overlooked hormone connections in women’s health. Dr. Vliet received her M.D. degree and internship in Internal Medicine at Eastern Virginia Medical School, then completed specialty training at Johns Hopkins Hospital. Dr. Vliet is a Director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons.

Dr. Vliet has appeared on FOX NEWS, Cavuto, Stuart Varney Show, Fox and Friends and syndicated radio shows across the country addressing the economic and medical impact of the new healthcare bill.

Patient Power America

Taking Power Back from ALL patients across America.

Author Archives: admin