WASHINGTON — Individual medical records, including patients' genetic information, could be disclosed by health insurers to credit card companies and other financial institutions under legislation overwhelmingly approved Thursday by the House.
The controversial provision is embedded in a massive bill overhauling the financial services industry, which passed, 343 to 86. The provision was slipped into the measure late in the legislative process and was advertised as a medical confidentiality provision by its sponsor, Rep. Greg Ganske (R-Iowa), who is a doctor.
Ganske said that his intention in adding the provision was to protect consumers' medical records and to allow their disclosure only for billing and other health care operations.
But privacy experts said that it is virtually a "publicity" provision that, because of the way it is worded, would allow broad disclosures of private medical information without a patient's permission.
"Under this legislation, a health insurer can send a patient's diagnosis to a credit agency. They can say, in effect, 'By the way, Joan Smith has a brain tumor; don't lend her any money,' " said Tim Westmoreland, a senior policy fellow at Georgetown University Law Center.
A number of groups, including the American Medical Assn., the American Civil Liberties Union and the American Psychiatric Assn., oppose the provision.
Although the Clinton administration supports the bill as a whole, it urged Congress to drop the medical confidentiality section because it could undermine privacy protections. But lawmakers said that Clinton is unlikely to veto the bill over the medical privacy provision alone.
If the bill becomes law, it would mark the first time since the Great Depression that the nation's banking laws have been overhauled. The goal of the popular legislation is to allow financial services firms--banks, savings and loan associations, investment banking firms, brokerage companies and insurers--to compete in each other's lines of business. The Senate already has approved a financial services modernization bill but did not include any mention of medical privacy.
It is unclear whether the medical privacy provision will remain part of the financial services bill. It could be removed in a House-Senate conference committee, which would have to work out differences between the two versions of the legislation.
