Anna Eshoo: “I thank our distinguished member of the Rules Committee. Mr. Speaker, I rise this morning in opposition to the rule and…”

“I thank our distinguished member of the Rules Committee. Mr. Speaker, I rise this morning in opposition to the rule and in opposition to the bill, and I want to state very clearly why. I believe that this bill is deeply deficient. And I am very disappointed because I had high hopes for this bill. At one time I was a cosponsor of it, but I removed my name from the bill when I saw what the deficiencies were and that the majority would not address them. My colleague, Mrs. Capps, has just eloquently outlined the deep deficiency relative to privacy. If you ask any American about privacy and if they want it protected in their financial records and their medical records, there will be a resounding yes. This bill has no protection for the American people relative to privacy. The second point, which is really a shame, that an HIT, health information technology bill, does not assure interoperability. My colleague from Florida mentioned this in his statement. There isn't going to be any point, it won't matter if every doctor, every hospital in our country has invested in robust IT technology if they can't communicate with one another. What this bill provides is that down the road, down the road 3 years, 5 years there may be interoperability. Does the majority not understand that in the market in terms of information technology that products change 6 months, 8 months. And so there isn't anything in the bill that assures that interoperability is going to take place.…”