The newest health care prop requires a "high tech" I.D. card. Did I get that right?
Just heard on the news a few minutes ago. The latest incarnation of Obama care requires what was called a “High Tech ID Card”. Supposedly it has much greater support and confidence for pushing it through is high.
Just to be clear, what exactly does “High Tech ID Card” mean? Could it mean RF ID? Is this entire thing a bait and switch simply designed to track people better?
I remember the old computer store Comp USA. At the checkout table was an artistic rendering of a hand with a star shining in the fleshy part between the index finger and thumb. I asked the clerk what that was for and she did not know. The emblem was right next to the bar code reader. It seemed to me at the time, that they were preparing our minds for the shape of things to come. As if one day we could just wave our hands across the terminal and have all info downloaded.
This type of scenario would best describe it.
So the main Q I have here is, do we need mandatory “High Tech ID Cards”? What would be the benefits and drawbacks? And who exactly would benefit the most? How would the common consumer benefit from this level of open identity sharing?
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called a “High Tech ID Card”.
Leading up to to a micro-chip.
The nazi’s just tattooed everyone.
On one hand, the benefits would be better information management – medical care would improve with this information. On the other hand, there would be absolutely no way to maintain privacy – if everyone is required to have it, the days of having the option to lay low in society are over.
It’ll probably be the precursor to the national ID card.
All countries with national health have an I.D. card. How is it different from the group insurance card you have now if you are lucky to have insurance? There’s privacy issues and there’s common sense.
@janbb key term was “high tech” ID card.
I suggest we all panic immediately.
So you’re in a car accident and are unconscious and need immediate medical attention. They bring you to the Emergency Room and scan your card, know exactly who you are, who to contact regarding your medical care, and it also alerts them that you’re severely allergic to the drug they were about to inject you with… I can see a big win here.
I also worry about the “big-brother” aspects of this kind of thing, but there is a tremendous amount of waste in terms of inefficiency with the way things are run. Think about how many times you have to fill in the same information about your medical history every time you see a new MD. Now every time you do that there’s a chance that:
1. you might forget something important (especially if you’re a senior who’s memory is going—it’s not like there’s a team of people going behind you to double check)
2. the person on the other end might key-in your info incorrectly.
It makes a lot more sense to have 1 set of accurate records that stays in sync. In the small surgical practice I work for, we pay someone to key in demographic and insurance information almost full-time, and they’re literally keying in what the hospital has printed out because their system can’t communicate with ours for various reasons… you want to reduce the cost of healthcare, this is one way to do it, not to mention that it might save lives, reduce the number of redundant tests ordered.
As long as the security of patient data is taken seriously, like it is with banks and credit-cards, then I see no problem with such a card (and it seems less big-brotherish to store it on your card than in some central computer mainframe).
With all due hatred for Big Brother… People complain when something is not “high tech” enough, and complain when something more “high tech” is called for.
Ah, paranoia. We all have multiple ID cards, you need one to drive, one for your current health insurance, one (or several) to buy things (that’s really what a credit card is, an ID card for accessing your credit line), one for dental insurance if you’re lucky enough to have it, one for the library, one for grocery store purchases, one for work, one for social security,etc, etc. What’s really wrong with a single national ID card? Why are we so afraid of that? One card that is more secure and harder to fake than most driver licenses and so forth that positively identifies the holder and can provide access to all sorts of data in a secure manner? Pretty much all you’ve got is paranoid conspiracy fantasies and arguments that it’s not secure enough. Well guess what, what you have now isn’t secure either.
@Snarp And don’t forget your passport…
@Dr_Dredd Yeah, I left it out because it’s not a card, but I thought about it, and it already has an RFID chip.
i have nothing to add, it’s been said. i simply want to register my dislike of the “obamacare” term. aside from the fact that’s it was obviously coined to belittle the important issue of health, it’s not true. for many, many years healthcare has been in trouble, and proposals to fix this have also been put forward for a long time. it’s just that now it’s becoming more critical, and we happen to have a president who’s taking it seriously. it’s sad to see so many people fooled into being against something that’s not just for their own interest, but is already working well in every developed country in the world, and also has been working right here in america for a long time (medicare and the healthcare system in hawaii). it’s not about obama. he has healthcare. it’s about us, the ones who often don’t have it. know the leading cause of bankruptcy? medical bills.
@Snarp Yeah, that’s quite depressing.
one final thought: the government—any government—can and does monitor its citizens and will do so whether they have healthcare or not. the question to ask yourself is, who benefits? who benefits from healthcare for all? and who benefits from the current system? people like rush limbaugh (who, incidently, got great care in hawaii, as you’ve probably already heard) are rich. they have healthcare. and they don’t care about you. they care about keeping what they have, and they do it by playing into the fear all people have about what might happen. they offer no solutions. none. they propose nothing to help people, and they don’t pretend to. it’s up to us to make our needs a priority, because talk show hosts and insurance interests are not going to do it for us.
I want a high tech chip implanted right behind temporal lobe. ::laughs::
We’re going to kill off our own species. Dinosaurs weren’t even this greedy and look what happened to them.
@iquanyin Wasn’t Rush Limbaugh the person who said he would move to Costa Rica if the bill passed?
Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out, dude.
Um, exactly where did you hear this? I haven’t heard anything about this, do you have a source?
Here’s the thing about anything ‘high tech’: It costs money. And a high tech id card isn’t absolutely necessary right now. The government is totally broke, OR it can afford nice little trinkets like high tech id cards. But it can’t be both.
@papayalily
Sometimes spending money saves huge amounts in the long run. Electronic records are cheaper than an army of clerks typing, printing, storing and fetching paperwork.
I’m not talking about this particular story/rumor/whatever. Just a general observation.
@jaytkay I agree with that, however, the government usually has to get x number of votes for something in congress, which means that all of those congressmen have to realize that too (and not be temporarily “forgetting” it for special interests)
Example: I think that having proper health care would bring down the total cost of health care eventually due to more people getting things like annual checkups and a round of antibiotics when needed instead of waiting until much more intensive and invasive treatment was necessary. However, look at how much trouble that thing is having getting passed?
@papayalily
Yeah, I see how much trouble. And it makes me sick! ;-)
yes, rush said he’d move to costa rica, where they have national healthcare, btw, so he got parodied a lot for saying it. i doubt he’d actually move there, but who knows.
Count me out on the collection, he’s got plenty of money for the move, and wouldn’t it be against his principles anyway?
careful. your conspiracy theorist is showing, not that I don’t agree
We have seen this coming for a long time
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