Government success or failure?-- 1 -- privacy rights

One of the central issues of American politics at the moment is the size and scope of the federal government. It seems to me that it is worth looking at some areas where the government has intervened in recent years to see how successful that intervention has been.

The first area that I want to address is protection of privacy rights. Anyone who has been to the doctor in the last 15 years has filled out the HIPA form in which you acknowledge that you have been given a copy of the notification as to how that office handles and protects your private information. Years ago, when this rule was first put in place by the feds, I used to get actual copies of the privacy rules. More recently, I just get a form to sign that says I have seen the rules. Of course, in all the offices where I have signed such a form I have never once seen the privacy rules. To be perfectly honest, when they used to give me an actual copy of the rules, I never once read them. I used to just give them back to the receptionist in order to save the paper. In the last year, I have also received mail from my bank, from the brokerage where my IRA is held, from the credit card companies and from the car company from whom I lease a car telling me in great detail how they treat my private information and how they protect my privacy.

I wonder how much is spent each year by American business, especially healthcare providers, following the government mandate to inform customers about their privacy rights and how that privacy is protected. I also wonder how many folks ever even skim through the information provided. My guess is that the cost is in the many billions of dollars and that there are probably three people in the entire country who read this garbage.

So next comes the question as to why is the law putting this costly burden on American business not rescinded? We know that there are people called "privacy advocates" who make a career appearing on cable news whenever someone attempts to use common sense with regard to privacy. In a country with an economy as troubled as the USA, we ought to have a government that tries to help by getting rid of unnecessary costs.

It well may be that when the original mandate to give out privacy right notification was passed into law, the responsible folks actually thought that they were doing something good (although I doubt it). When a policy fails, however, it needs to be terminated. That last thought is something that the federal government simply cannot understand.