Massachusetts Hospitals to ask more than usual patient data

The Boston Globe reports:

Hospitals would have to document in detail the race, ethnicity, and education of all patients under proposed state and Boston regulations, supplying information that has been surprisingly hard to collect but could be crucial to reducing inequalities in care and implementing portions of the state's groundbreaking insurance law.

A growing body of national research shows dramatic inequalities in the health status of broadly defined racial groups and in the medical care they receive. But regulators say the data gloss over the mixed ethnicity of many people and often are inconsistently gathered by hospital staffs. This makes it difficult to accurately analyze health disparities and target solutions to the right populations.

''The biggest issue for hospitals is the fear of asking someone," said Judy Parlato, clinical adviser at the Massachusetts Division of Health Care Finance and Policy, one of the agencies pushing for hospitals to collect more detailed data. ''They feel it's very personal to ask someone for this information."

The government that's big enough to give you free medical care is eventually going to want to know all about you in the name of "compassion".Massachusetts liberals can hardly object to NSA wiretaps when big brother "needs" to know about your medical problems.You can't have it both ways: privacy and activist government.