National Healthcare DOES NOT Require RFID Chips

The internet is rife with rumors that President Obama’s Health Care Bill (HR 3200 Sec 2521) means American citizens will be required to have RFID microchips implanted on their person. This would give Government information on your medical history, personal information, the ability to track your movements, and yes even your bank account information. Judging by the quantity of articles to read, someone likes the story. Is it possible there is an election looming?

There are several issues though. For a start HR3200 is obsolete. Whatever was said in Sec 2521 of HR3200 is not going to happen. The Bill was not approved by the House. Anything that has been cited from this source is totally irrelevant because it was never passed by Congress and will never be turned into law. Microchip implanting has been rumored in relation to Health Care Reform ever since the Clinton Administration.

The offending or misleading words in the Act were;

(Sec 2521 (g)(1))“the Secretary will establish  a National Medical Device Registry to
facilitate analysis of postmarket safety and outcomes data on each device that:

(A) is or has  been used on a patient;

(B) and is:

(i) a class III device;

or (ii) a  class II device  that is implantable,  life supporting or life sustaining”.

Firstly (in case you missed it in the first 2 paragraphs) H.R. 3200 was not, I repeat, NOT passed into law. H.R.3200 was an early House version of Health Care Reform Legislation. Therefore passages cited from this Act are irrelevant because it never was passed into law.

Secondly there was no mandate that anyone be implanted with any type of microchip or device, for any reason. The passages quoted above reference a section which simply calls for the creation of a registry which would allow the Department of Health and Human Services to collect data about medical services “used in or on a patient”. This would include devices that patients consent to have implanted on them during surgery. An example would be a pacemaker. The purpose of such as registry would be to track the effectiveness of such devices.

Internet magic. In this day and age the internet provides a medium for anyone to write anything and – if so desired – for it to be available for the whole world to see. This is good and this is bad. Most of us, myself included, can be lazy. When we see a storm, and I mean of course a storm of articles about a Bill or an Act (in this instance) it is easy to go with the flow and take everything as gospel. We can be sucked right into the vortex of the storm and only at some point later in time do we realize there was no storm. In the virtual world just like in the real world for something to be of value it has to have integrity. It has to be real. What we don’t need is a false storm. We do not need people pulling the wool over our eyes. Life can be hard; life can be busy so if there is to be a storm let it be a storm based on reality.

This is not to say that sometimes what is posted on the internet is not based on reality in the eyes of the writer. All I am really saying is if you want to believe in something, if you want to pursue a matter further, before you get up in arms, make sure you know the facts, all of them. There is enough to deal with in life without putting a lot of energy into actions that are irrelevant. In the end the truth is always revealed.