by Karl Denninger
Market-Ticker.org
In the United States we have this law that’s known as HIPAA. It’s a quite-broad law, although it is often ignored and breaches rarely bring any sort of sanction, especially not criminal sanction (which they should.)
It mandates that health information be private, with a few exceptions — and it is those exceptions that are the problem. For instance, your health insurance company is “entitled” to see everything, because you want them to pay your claims. Likewise, it is also this enabling legislation that has made possible the monstrosity we have today with medical records; they’re not actually your property, and because you have no property interest in them you can’t insist that they go with you (such as on a Thumb drive.)