Democratic Health Care Bill Divulges IRS Tax Data

http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/08/26/taking_liberties/entry5268079.shtml

One of the problems with any proposed law that's over 1,000 pages long
and constantly changing is that much deviltry can lie in the details.
Take the Democrats' proposal to rewrite health care policy, better
known as H.R. 3200 or by opponents as "Obamacare." (Here's our CBS
News television coverage.)

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."

Section 245(b)(2)(A) says the IRS must divulge tax return details --
there's no specified limit on what's available or unavailable -- to
the Health Choices Commissioner. The purpose, again, is to verify
"affordability credits."

Section 1801(a) says that the Social Security Administration can
obtain tax return data on anyone who may be eligible for a "low-income
prescription drug subsidy" but has not applied for it.

Over at the Institute for Policy Innovation (a free-market think tank
and presumably no fan of Obamacare), Tom Giovanetti argues that: "How
many thousands of federal employees will have access to your records?
The privacy of your health records will be only as good as the most
nosy, most dishonest and most malcontented federal employee.... So say
good-bye to privacy from the federal government. It was fun while it
lasted for 233 years."

I'm not as certain as Giovanetti that this represents privacy's
Armageddon. (Though I do wonder where the usual suspects like the
Electronic Privacy Information Center are. Presumably inserting limits
on information that can be disclosed -- and adding strict penalties on
misuse of the information kept on file about hundreds of millions of
Americans -- is at least as important as fretting about Facebook's
privacy policy in Canada.)

A better candidate for a future privacy crisis is the so-called
stimulus bill enacted with limited debate early this year. It mandated
the "utilization of an electronic health record for each person in the
United States by 2014," but included only limited privacy protections.

It's true that if the legislative branch chooses to create
"affordability credits," it probably makes sense to ensure they're not
abused. The goal of curbing fraud runs up against the goal of
preserving individual privacy.

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.