Pete Stark: “lawmakers casting a ``yea'' vote today on the Financial Services Act, H.R. 10, are making a fundamental error. They are…”

“lawmakers casting a ``yea'' vote today on the Financial Services Act, H.R. 10, are making a fundamental error. They are effectively voting to strip millions of Americans of a basic right: the ability to exercise meaningful control over who sees their most sensitive information. Title III, Subtitle D, Section 351 of the bill gives insurers extensive ability to disclose medical information without a consumer's consent. If this provision is enacted into law, it will create legal chaos. As written, it appears to overlay myriad state medical privacy laws that regulate disclosure and access. Does it make you feel ill to know that under H.R. 10, a travel insurance agent could peruse your medical records? Does it make your blood pressure rise to know that under H.R. 10, auto insurance companies could use medical data to raise your family's rate? And that any insurer, as well as its affiliates and subsidiaries, would be legally authorized to share sensitive, personal information with credit reporting companies? Unless lawmakers appointed as conferees for H.R. 10 take action to strike the bill's medical privacy provisions, American consumers will wake up to find that the insurance industry--which makes most of its money through underwriting to reduce financial risk--can disclose their medical data without authorization in many, many circumstances. And that's plainly wrong.”