Patient Power

Colorado HB 10-1330: All-payer data base makes your medical history transparent

Linda Gorman, director of the Independent Institute’s Health Care Policy Center, summarizes this bill and how it’s bad for Coloradans. Here’s a list of her main points:

What the Bill Does: Gives the Executive Director of Health Care Policy and Financing the power to create a database to collect and store unlimited information on everyone who provides or receives health care in Colorado whether or not the state pays for that health care and whether or not the transaction is a private one.

How the Bill Endangers Colorado Citizens:

1. Because it enables the creation of dossiers on citizens, the bill transfers too much power to state government
2. The metrics discussed in the bill do not exist. The use of poor substitutes will likely increase health care costs and degrade health care outcomes
3. The bill funds the database with money from undisclosed sources with undisclosed agendas that may not be in the best interests of Colorado citizens
4. There is no known way to secure the private information that the state proposes to collect.
5. There is no guarantee that the Commission appointed to study the database issues will have the expertise needed to accurately ascertain its consequences.

For details on each of these points, read Dr. Gorman’s Bill Summary: HB10-1330, the All-Payer Database: A Transparency Trojan Horse.

Update March 4: Also check out this podcast about HB 10-1330 from iVoices.

• Colorado HB 1330 threatens your medical privacy
• Your medical records: Will government employees get paid to read them?
• Are your medical records secure?
• Mandatory insurance violates your medical privacy
• Health information technology: benefits and problems