More Subsidies, Less Privacy

If you’re concerned about your phone company selling your personal information for commercial gain, you might want to consider the privacy implications of the House health care bill.

The CBS News blog highlights the problem of upholding privacy protections while also combating fraud.

“Section 431(a) of the bill says that the IRS must divulge taxpayer identity information, including the filing status, the modified adjusted gross income, the number of dependents, and ‘other information as is prescribed by’ regulation. That information will be provided to the new Health Choices Commissioner and state health programs and used to determine who qualifies for “affordability credits.”

Great. Your tax information floating around a yet-to-be-seen “Health Choices Commissioner” as well as state programs. Correspondent Declan McCullagh concludes, “If we’re going to have such significant additional government intrusion into our health care system, we will have to draw the privacy line somewhere. Maybe the House Democrats’ current bill gets it right. Maybe it doesn’t. But this vignette should be reason to be skeptical of claims that a massive and complex bill must be enacted so rapidly as its backers would have you believe.”

(Cross-posted from State House Call.)

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