Health Insurance Exchange (H 6210 A, S 495 A)

For over a decade, our organization has maintained that the inclusion of personal health care and medical information through the RI Health Insurance Exchange (HIE) must be on a strictly voluntary basis through an opt-in, rather than an opt-out, system. We opposed this legislation which will reverse and undermine this opt-in procedure and impose an opt-out system instead. When it pertains to patient autonomy, opt-in procedures more appropriately place individual patients in the best position to control where and how their personal medical information is stored or disclosed. Amending this statute to instead provide for an opt-out procedure shifts the privacy burden on the wrong party, and we urged rejection of the bill. Unfortunately, the bill passed both the House and the Senate.