TUCSON, Ariz., Dec. 11, 2013 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Patient privacy is under assault from a series of federal laws, culminating in the Affordable Care Act (ACA or "ObamaCare"), writes patient advocate Twila Brase, R.N., in the winter 2013 issue of the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons. Brase is president and cofounder of the Citizens' Council for Health Freedom.

Brase emphasizes that "he who holds the data makes the rules." The push toward electronic medical records is designed to funnel vast amounts of patients' formerly confidential information into a huge network of private and governmental entities.

Under the "Privacy Rule" of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), 701,325 entities have access to "protected" health information. HIPAA is really a "NO-privacy" law, Brase writes.

"The master control and the largest surveillance system of all is ACA's Exchange, now euphemistically called 'The Marketplace.'" There is actually only one exchange, Brase states. There is one central server—the Federal Data Services Hub, connected to "dummy terminals ('state exchanges')."

ACA is a "data miner's dream," she writes. "The surveillance and reporting provisions set in place the tools needed to impose a national healthcare system. The federal government needs the information in our medical records to impose control over our doctors and our personal lives."

The federal government will use patient data to ration care and control physicians, Brase predicts. The IRS will use ACA's Exchange to police the individual and employer mandates and to impose the "uninsured tax" penalty. "Seven hundred pages of the 2,700-page bill were a rewrite of the IRS code to empower the IRS with access to personal data," Brase states.

To reclaim health freedom, Brase writes that we must stop government intrusions into the medical record. She advises patients to seek care from physicians outside the insurance system who accept direct payment and keep records out of the government data base.

The Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons is published by the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS), a national organization representing physicians in all specialties since 1943.

Citizens' Council for Health Freedom, a patient-centered national health freedom organization based in St. Paul, Minn. CCHF supports patient and doctor freedom, medical innovation, and the right of citizens to a confidential patient-doctor relationship.