Top Secret

In the US, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) was enacted by the Congress in 1996. It was originally sponsored by past Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Sen. Nancy Kassebaum (R-Kan.) For the many of you who are not of the US, the D- and R- stand for Democratic and Republican political parties in the US. And please do not get me started on that tangent.

According to the Centers for Medicare (the elderly) and Medicaid (the destitute) Services (CMS) website, Title I of HIPAA protects health insurance coverage for workers and their families when they change or lose their jobs. Title II of HIPAA, known as the Administrative Simplification (AS) provisions, requires the establishment of national standards for electronic health care transactions and national identifiers for providers, health insurance plans, and employers. Of course, that is all great and dandy in theory, but reality is quite different...

The Administration Simplification provisions also address the security and privacy of health data. The standards are meant to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the nation's health care system by encouraging the widespread use of electronic data interchange in the U.S. health care system. Again, you never can tell which standards these are meant to be.

In any case, this is a typical, and in tune with HIPAA, nameless medical office somewhere in Miami. A well-versed person, yours truly, can tell that this electronic data system is quite old. The screen is supposed to be protected in such a manner that it can be viewed only by the user sitting in front of it. This is not the case here. But... you can't read anything from here, so we are quite safe.