States Begin Selling Information from their All-Payer Databases
Written by Linda Gorman   Even before the Colorado legislature
passed the All-Payer Database law and the Department of Health
Care Policy and Financing turned your Medical Records for
Salemedical records over to CIVHC, a private 501(c)(3), the
Independence Institute warned that allowing states to routinely
requisition medical records would compromise medical privacy
(see this, this, and this). The problem is that medical records
contain so much personal data that individuals can be identified
even if names and SSNs are redacted.  Bloomberg is now reporting
that states hungry for revenue and flush with the power to
requisition individual medical records are moving to capitalize
on the value of that information by selling the information in
those records to all comers. Unlike private companies, states
and their agents are exempt from HIPAA requirements and
therefore do not have to take data privacy especially seriously.
In an experiment, research