Nothing to hide
I'm not sure Denny Altes' bill to set up a system by which the Health Department would keep records of many of our prescription drugs is as dead as reported. Senate president pro tem Jack Critcher was telling me yesterday it's a good bill. The Health Department wouldn't mind the federal money. And, frankly, usually reasonable people have not responded with the uniform outrage I might have expected over a Big Brother invasion of medical privacy. A dinner companion was saying the other night that if the state thinks it can better combat doctor shopping, drug dealing and drug abuse by keeping a record of what she takes -- then it's all right with her. Just now I taught my weekly retirees' class, and I brought up the subject. I expected more vocal outrage than I got. After class, one of the more informed and thoughtful attendees came up to say doctor shopping is a real problem, and, well, she needed to think more about why I was so aghast at this particular legislation. I have long contended that Americans are not altogether comfortable with these constitutional rights the founders extended them. When those rights are pitted against fighting crime, people go wobbly and don't even realize they're doing it. And sometimes they choose practice over principle. If they have nothing to hide in their prescriptions, maybe they don't get so worked up that the principle of individual liberty and privacy is generally at issue.