By requiring people to choose between health care and personal privacy, Colorado’s All-Payer Health Claims Database and the proposed HB 12-1242 are both unacceptable infringements of individual rights, write Linda Gorman & Amy Oliver (both w/ the Independence Institute) in the Colorado Springs Gazette.

On HB 12-1242, they write:

Reps. Summers and Massey, along with Sen. Betty Boyd are sponsoring HB12-1242. Under that bill, you won’t be able to get prescription medications or controlled over-the-counter medications without providing a biometric identifier like a fingerprint or a retinal scan. Failure to comply would be a Class 1 misdemeanor, a crime as serious as the possession of child pornography or third degree assault.If requiring voters to show ID is an unacceptable infringement of rights, so is requiring people to choose between health care and personal privacy. Officials who fail to repeal the APDB enable the ongoing assault on individual liberty.

Read the whole article here: Bill would compromise patients’ medical privacy.

Regarding controlled over-the-counter medications, the first one I think of is the decongestant pseudoephedrine, which federal drug warriors took off the shelves because it’s used to make meth. But as Radley Balko reports, this restriction on our liberties has questionable benefits at best.

(Balko article via FIRM)