Hirono ad ignores significant fact
| • | Ad Watch: The ad and the reality |
By Kevin Dayton
Advertiser Capitol Bureau Chief
One of Lt. Gov. Mazie Hirono's new campaign advertisements boasts of her efforts to repeal an unpopular state medical records privacy law last year but neglects to mention it was Hirono who approved the law in the first place.
In a TV ad that began airing statewide last month, Hirono says that the medical privacy law was "a bad idea" that threatened businesses with "financial disaster." A narrator tells viewers, "No one was willing to help but Mazie Hirono."
What the ad doesn't say is that while serving briefly as acting governor on June 23, 1999, Hirono signed the medical records bill into law after it passed the state Legislature.
She then issued a statement praising the law for creating a new, comprehensive system of regulation that would protect patient privacy.
"It is important that under this bill patients finally have protection of their medical records," Hirono said in the press release.
She also cited the work of the Patients' Medical Record Privacy Task Force for advancing the bill, noting lawmakers had rejected the measure for four years before finally adopting it in 1999.
Insurance and healthcare executives began complaining about the new medical privacy law in 2000, saying it was expensive to comply with and was slowing insurance claim processing.
The new law imposed criminal penalties on people who deliberately and improperly disclosed patient records, which triggered widespread alarm and confusion among doctors and other companies that handle medical records.
In the summer of 2000, Hirono urged lawmakers to meet in a special session to delay implementation of the law so it could be rewritten and clarified later. The Legislature reconvened in August and delayed the effective date of the law.
The following year, Hirono urged lawmakers to repeal the medical privacy act entirely, which they did. Hirono also signed the measure that repealed the medical privacy act.
Hirono, who is running against state Rep. Ed Case of Manoa and businessman D.G. "Andy" Anderson in the Democratic primary in September, said in an interview that the advertisement accurately recounts her role in pushing to have the law repealed. Neither she nor anyone else involved knew the privacy act would cause such an uproar, she said.
"Nobody even knew what the impact of this was," Hirono said. "Everybody thought, 'Medical privacy. Sounds good.' "
The vote in the House and Senate were nearly unanimous with only two lawmakers voting against the bill, and Hirono said "the issue did not arise to any kind of a red flag."
"Obviously, I am one who can say, 'You know what? The reality of this is we made a mistake, we've got to do something about it on behalf of business.' I make no excuses, and you know what? I led the charge on (the repeal effort)."
As for her own role in putting the medical privacy act into law, Hirono said: "I was not responsible for the passage of the bill. I was responsible for signing a whole bunch of laws that the governor asked me to sign into law. That's how that part of legislation works."
Reach Kevin Dayton at kdayton@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8070.
