News in brief - May 19, 2003

Court upholds HIPAA privacy rules - Bill would give self-employed a tax break on insurance - Money for global HIV efforts

Court upholds HIPAA privacy rules

A federal appeals court has upheld a lower court decision that the Dept. of Health and Human Services didn't overstep its bounds when it created medical records privacy regulations for the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996.

The South Carolina Medical Assn., Physicians Care Network and several individual physicians sued HHS and its secretary, Tommy Thompson, in 2001. They alleged that the agency exceeded its constitutional authority because it developed the rules without adequate guidance from Congress. The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed.

"Because Congress laid out an intelligible principle in HIPAA to guide agency action, we reject appellants' claim," the court said in South Carolina Medical v. Thompson.

Bill would give self-employed a tax break on insurance

Legislation introduced in the House in late April would allow self-employed workers to deduct the cost of health insurance from their payroll taxes, rather than just from individual income tax as is currently allowed. "Our smallest businesses should have the same opportunity to deduct their health insurance costs as our large corporations enjoy," said the bill's sponsor, Rep. Don Manzullo (R, Ill.).

While all employed individuals are required to pay the FICA tax, which goes to Medicare and Social Security, self-employed workers are saddled with both their own contribution and what would be their employer's portion, according to a study by National Small Business United. This results in a 15.3% tax on their income.

Money for global HIV efforts

The House has passed a bill to boost the U.S. contribution to international HIV/AIDS efforts by $15 billion over five years. The measure closely follows criteria discussed by President Bush earlier this year.

The bill would require that at least a third of the money for prevention go to abstinence programs. It also would allow funds to go to religious groups even if their beliefs prevent them from distributing condoms. Family planning groups would also be eligible for the new money, as long as abortion counseling was kept separate from the funded functions.

Despite strong support for such legislation in the White House and Senate, the bill faces significant obstacles. Although President Bush has publicly called for the $3 billion a year as in the bill, the budget he proposed for next year contains only $1.7 billion. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, MD (R, Tenn.), said he wants to pass a similar bill quickly, but at press time, no legislation had been introduced in that body.