The Louisville Courier-Journal has an article entitled Court hears Medicaid records case. (h/t Indiana Law Blog.) An Indiana Court of Appeals panel heard arguments in the case of Planned Parenthood v. Steve Carter. At issue is Carter’s desire to see the records of girls under 14 years old who use the services of Planned Parenthood.
At stake is whether a federal statute on Medicaid fraud can compel health-care providers to turn over records that could identify girls and boys under age 14 who are sexually active. Indiana law regards sex with a child under 14 as child abuse, no matter the age of the other person.
State law also compels anyone with knowledge of child abuse to report it to child welfare officials or police.
Planned Parenthood’s attorney, Ken Falk of the Indiana Civil Liberties Union, said his client complies with the reporting law. But even if it didn’t, it would be guilty only of failure to report, not neglect.
“Failure to report is not neglect because you’re not the injurer of the child,” Falk said, and is not covered by the federal Medicaid fraud law.
I’m sure the technical legal issues are different, but it reminds me a bit of the fight over whether prosecutors are entitled to see Rush Limbaugh’s medical records in an effort to determine whether he was doctor shopping for oxycontin prescriptions.
A court recently ruled that, until charges of doctor shopping are filed, “doctors can’t be asked about ‘the medical condition of the patient (or) any information disclosed to the healthcare practitioner by the patient in the course of the care and treatment of the patient.'” Without charges having been filed, the prosecution can’t get at that information.
Seems like the same standards should apply in both cases. Either we allow the government to go on fishing expeditions into people’s medical records or we don’t. But, I certainly wouldn’t be surprised to see that different sides of the political spectrum are not consistent on the two issues. Except the Civil Liberties Unions — the ICLU has tried to stop disclosure of the Planned Parenthood records and the ACLU has tried to stop disclosure of the Rush Limbaugh records.
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