Should Government Have E-Record of Every Woman Who’s Had an Abortion? Should doctors and hospitals be required by the federal government to maintain a national network of electronic health records for every individual in America that indicates, for example, whether that individual has had an abortion, a sexually transmitted disease, a mental illness or a drug problem?
Such a system has already been mandated by the stimulus law enacted in February, and politicians in Washington, D.C., would now prefer not to answer straightforward questions about it. Americans should not let them get away with it.
The stimulus law provided for “the development of a nationwide health information technology infrastructure” that would include an electronic health record for “each person in the United States by 2014.”
The law says these records should contain each person’s “medical history and problems lists.”
This system holding each American’s “medical history and problems lists,” the law says, will allow for “the electronic linkage of health care providers, health plans, the government and other interested parties to enable electronic exchange and use of health information among all the components in the health care infrastructure in accordance with applicable law.”
