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Health Information Technology Promotion Act of 2006

By: Ed Markey
By: Ed Markey
Date: July 27, 2006
Location: Washington, DC
Issues: Health and Health Care


HEALTH INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY PROMOTION ACT OF 2006 -- (House of Representatives - July 27, 2006)

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Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas for his leadership on this issue.

There is no privacy protection in this bill. We are about to move to an era where all of your drug records, all of your psychiatric records, all of your children's medical records are going online. William Butler Yeats, the great Irish poet, said that in dreams begin responsibility. We have a responsibility to have privacy protections built into this bill.

What do the Republicans say? They say trust the Department of Health and Human Services. This year Tom Davis, the Government Reform Committee, gave a grade to all agencies in the protection of privacy. Do you know what grade Tom Davis and your Government Reform Committee gave to the Department of Health and Human Services? An F. Now, that is Medicare and Medicaid. That is one quarter of all Americans. Now we are taking all private citizens as well and the Republicans are saying ``trust the Department of Health and Human Services.''

What our motion to recommit says is that every American has the right to say that their children's medical records do not have to be put online; that everyone does not have to know about it; that they have a right to say no, they don't want those records online; that each family can make that decision for themselves.

Vote ``aye'' on the Doggett motion to recommit.

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