Politics

Bush OKs Medical Privacy Rules

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

April 12, 2001 / 12:30 PM EDT / CBS

The Bush administration said Thursday that it would immediately implement sweeping rules giving patients their first federal right to guard health records.

In a statement, President Bush said he decided "to allow" the rule to take effect despite his concern that parents not be denied access to their children's records.

"I believe that we must protect both vital health care services and the right of every American to have confidence that his or her personal medical records will remain private," Mr. Bush said.

The rules, issued in the final weeks of the Clinton administration, require doctors, hospitals and other health care providers to get permission before disclosing personal patient information.

Tommy Thompson, the secretary of health and human services, said the Bush administration will modify the regulations. However, these changes do not appear to change its core elements.

Thompson said the department will make it clear that doctors can share medical information with specialists treating the same patients, pharmacists can fill prescriptions over the phone and parents can get information about their children's health, including records on abortion.

The rules have been attacked by hospitals, insurance companies, drug manufacturers and others as too complicated and expensive to implement and health care industry groups had hoped that the Bush administration would make significant changes before implementing them.

But Thompson said Thursday that the rules must go forward.

"We have laws in this country to protect the personal information contained in bank, credit card and other financial records. Our citizens must not wait any longer for protection of the most personal of all information — their health records," he said in a statement.

Upon taking office, Thompson put the rules on hold for 60 days and solicited comments on the issue that has been intensely debated by lawmakers and policy-makers for years. The review period expires on Saturday but HHS has already received more than 24,000 comments.

The rules allow the HHS secretary to make changes to the rules for up to a year after they take effect and Thompson said he will use that time to consider changes. He said HHS will also issue guidelines to clarify some confusion about the regulations.

Also on the health-care front, President Bush is moving to eliminate a Clinton-era program that provided prescription contraceptive coverage to federal employees.

The proposal, part of the budget the president sent to Capitol Hill this week, could mean that thousands of female employees lose insurance coverage for birth control.

Rep. Nita Lowey, the New York Democrat who sponsored the 1998 provision, said she's "angered and disappointed by President Bush's decision to eliminate contraceptive coverage for federal employees."

Gloria Feldt, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, says Mr. Bush's proposal is "a blatant attempt to denwomen equitable treatment.''

But Chris Ullman, a spokesman for the White House's Office of Management and Budget, said many of the federal employees' health plans were already providing contraceptive coverage before the 1998 law went into effect.

"The need for a mandate (law) is more symbolic than substantive,'' he said. "We're interested in substance.''

The provision covers 1.2 million female federal employees who are of reproductive age. The government already refuses to provide insurance coverage for federal employees to obtain abortions.

Congress could choose to keep the provision despite Mr. Bush's stance, although the GOP-led House and Senate have worked hard to keep much of the president's agenda intact.