Lobbying on health IT portion of stimulus is picking up

As the House Energy and Commerce and Ways and Means committees marked up their portions of the $825 billion economic stimulus package Thursday, industry and consumer groups with a stake in a proposed $20 billion boost for health information technology lobbied lawmakers hard. Much of the discourse focused on privacy and security provisions of the legislation.

America's Health Insurance Plans wrote to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., in support of spurring adoption of electronic medical records as part of the stimulus but argued the proposal unveiled last week would require HHS to issue regulations that would restrict information that could be exchanged for health promotion, disease management, and care coordination programs.

"Such regulations could undermine existing quality improvement initiatives," AHIP President Karen Ignagni said in a letter dated Wednesday.

The group flagged provisions that would let state attorneys general enforce federal privacy standards -- a change that could lead to a 50-state approach that is "neither uniform, clear, nor cost effective" and said the measure would establish broadly worded breach notification requirements that could unnecessarily alarm consumers.

AHIP also said all entities that participate in a health IT exchange should be required to adhere to the same privacy and security standards and urged committees to loosen marketing restrictions and narrow language on "accounting for disclosures" requirements.

On the flip side, Patient Privacy Rights urged lawmakers Monday to retain the consumer protections in the package. "This bill is designed to stop harmful, illegal and unethical sales and uses of Americans' personal health information, from prescription records to DNA and genetic tests -- while ensuring that the healthcare system can benefit from new technologies," the group's founder Deborah Peel said. "Americans need jobs in this bad economy and should be hired based on what they can do, not turned away because of fears that they will become sick and expensive employees in the future."

The National Association of Chain Drug Stores wrote to Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., Wednesday arguing that stimulus language "unfairly penalizes providers who have already adopted health information technology" by requiring new, potentially costly and operationally burdensome mandates.

NACDS supports the passage of legislation to enhance the health IT movement but said complex privacy issues "must be fully aired through hearings and discussion that legislating through regular order would provide."

The Consumer Partnership for e-Health, made up of consumer, labor and patient advocates, called for strong baseline privacy and security protections. In a Wednesday letter to Energy and Commerce leaders, the coalition said the stimulus should establish "a foundation of privacy and security protections that will help consumers trust that their personal information will not be inappropriately shared or used."

The letter, released Thursday, called for a chief privacy officer within the HHS health IT coordination office; a ban on the sale of personal health data without consent, and increased enforcement and penalties for health IT-related wrongdoing.