Earlier this year, criminal hackers breached Washington D.C.’s health insurance system, compromising the private health information of tens of thousands, including members of Congress. The hackers even gained access to Social Security numbers.
It’s never been more apparent that the United States and our digital infrastructure have a cybersecurity problem. Foreign hackers stealing our most sensitive information puts American citizens' livelihoods – and now lives – at stake. No private information matters more to the well-being of Americans than healthcare information, and keeping this data safe and secure should be paramount.
The Biden Administration should be doing everything possible to strengthen our nation’s cybersecurity and protect all Americans' digital privacy and healthcare data. Instead, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) could allow more of our private healthcare data online. The FDA recently proposed a rule that could put the printed patient medication information (PMI) that’s stapled to your prescription bag at the pharmacy online – accessible via QR code. When hackers inevitably shut down an entire healthcare database, which happened just this year, keeping PMI printed is the only way to ensure Americans have their medication information.
PMI tells patients about their medications and gives instructions on how to take them safely and what side effects to look out for in an emergency. Even with this information, taking prescriptions wrong already causes more than 100,000 deaths in this country every year – which will skyrocket if this information is hidden behind a QR code – which is where the problem lies.
Cybersecurity concerns aside, it shows you just how out of touch the Biden administration is with the lives of real Americans.
Why does the Biden Administration think every American has access to the internet? Do they care that lower-income Americans can’t afford a smartphone? Why do they believe that seniors are going to be able to navigate a QR code for their medication information if they can’t use it to access a menu at a restaurant? It’s clear what their real priorities are – virtue signaling the environmentalist on the left.
We cannot let bureaucrats in Washington, D.C., put our lives at risk so they can check a box with a special interest group. The FDA needs to revise its proposed rule to guarantee that printed PMI remains in the hands of every American taking prescription drugs. Doing so will save American lives.
Matt Mackowiak is the president of Potomac Strategy Group, a Republican consultant, a former Bush administration official, a Bush-Cheney re-election campaign veteran and a former press secretary to two U.S. Senators.
