WellPoint, one of the nation's largest health insurers, has reported that a disc containing highly sensitive personal, including mental health, information of 75,000 enrollees has vanished. The company plans to mitigate the breach by offering the affected enrollees 12 months of free credit monitoring; however, credit monitoring will provide paltry comfort, at best, to patients whose mental health records have been compromised. Worse yet, this is the second breach reported by WellPoint. In October of 2006, electronic backup tapes containing information on 196,000 members were stolen. Without establishing basic protections for the patient's right to privacy prior to adopting a nationwide health information system, the security risks are truly profound. Surely, Congress can no longer ignore this pressing issue. |