“Buried in the 1,017 pages of the House Democrats’ health-care bill is a little-noticed provision that for the first time could give the government access to the checking or credit-card information of every American. Under section 163, which is entitled ‘Administrative Simplification,’ the bill sets new ‘standards’ for electronic transactions between individuals and their health-care providers.
According to section 163, the standards will ‘enable the real-time (or near real-time) determination of an individual’s financial responsibility at the point of service . . . ‘ In addition, they will ‘enable electronic funds transfers, in order to allow automated reconciliation with related health care payment and remittance advice.’
What is envisioned is a ‘machine-readable health plan beneficiary card’ that, in addition to information about a person’s medical history, will contain checking-account or credit-card information, so as to allow electronic payments and, if a person is lucky, occasional remittances. Since under the proposed legislation everyone would be required to have health insurance, all Americans would have to provide this information.” (Read more from nationalreview.com)