September 18, 2007

Flashback: Hillary Clinton healthcare plan's national ID card + massive government database

Let's set the wayback machine to HillaryCare, circa 1994:

Under President Clinton's health-care plan, every person in America will be registered by the federal government and issued a red, white and blue "Health Security Card." This includes independent contractors, the self-employed, the homeless, and illegal immigrants who have regular jobs. Babies will be registered at birth.

As 'The Clinton Blueprint: The President's Health Security Plan' (Times Books, 1993) points out, once you are enrolled, you will be assigned a "unique individual identifier." "The unique identifier may be the Social Security number or a newly created number assigned to the health care system." All of your medical information will be collected and stored in a "unified health information system," where it can be accessed via your health-security ID number. And "an electronic network of regional centers containing enrollment, financial, and utilization data is created. The network receives standardized enrollment, encounter, and related data from plans for aggregations in analysis and feedback to plans, alliances, states and the Federal Government."

In other words, everyone in America will be assigned a national ID number, and your medical records will be stored in a government computer, where they can be seen by thousands of bureaucrats. This information could be used to deny you governmental loans or jobs. Or it could be used to force you to get mandatory treatment for alcohol or drug abuse. Or it could put you in a mental hospital or enable the state to take away your children...

I'm sure we can count on Ezra Klein and all the other promoters to disclose whether Hillary Clinton's new healthcare plan contains some of these same downsides.

Posted to Privacy at September 18, 2007 11:24 AM