The Biden administration's goal for vaccinations has been a moving target, but the latest is for 105 million adults to be fully vaccinated and 56% of adults to have had at least one shot. The administration recognizes that even making that goal is going to be a stretch, so the president says they have a plan to get there. (See earlier story)
"Now we need to go community by community, neighborhood by neighborhood, and oftentimes door to door – literally knocking on doors," President Joe Biden said during a Thursday press conference as he described how the government plans to "get help" to Americans who remain "unvaccinated and unprotected."
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) is a federal law that required the creation of national standards to protect sensitive patient health information from being disclosed without the patient's consent or knowledge. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued the HIPAA Privacy Rule to implement the requirements of HIPAA. The HIPAA Security Rule protects a subset of information covered by the Privacy Rule. (Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) |
Americans, though, have privacy concerns, and are asking if their vaccine status is the government's business. HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra says it is.
"The federal government has had to spend trillions of dollars to try to keep Americans alive during this pandemic. So, it is absolutely the government's business; it is taxpayers' business," Becerra argued.
Dr. Alex McFarland, who co-hosts a daily program on American Family Radio, describes the administration's tactic as nothing less than a brazen power grab.
"They're using COVID as a contrivance to temporarily – with an eye to ultimately – suspend our constitutional rights," says the Christian educator. "This is a moment of political opportunity for those who want to further erode our constitutionally protected rights, and we can't let this happen."
And he wonders: why the double standard? "What we're basically hearing are arguments from the Left that we should suspend the very same constitutional right that the pro-abortion and pro-assisted suicide lobby has defended," McFarland notes.
As he points out, those on the Left have argued for decades that no one has the right to impose or override a woman's right to personal medical choices.
McFarland made his comments Thursday on American Family Radio.
