Privacy

WASHINGTON (AP) via NewsEdge Corporation -

December 21, 2000. President Clinton issued sweeping new privacy
protections Wednesday that, for the first time, will sharply limit
doctors, hospitals and insurance companies from sharing confidential
medical information about their patients.

``Nothing is more private than someone's medical or psychiatric
records,'' Clinton said. ``If we are to make freedom fully meaningful
in the information age, when most of our stuff is on some computer
somewhere, we have to protect the privacy of individual health
records.''

Until now, there's been no federal law protecting medical privacy,
even as technology allows personal information to bounce swiftly from
one computer to the next. Clinton said his actions Wednesday were the
most he could do to protect individual medical records, and called on
Congress to pass more protections.

see http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/20/national/20CND-PRIV.html