Six chapters in this book, edited by the Cato Institute's Gene Healy, examine the "alarming trends" in federal criminal code that make it "frighteningly easy for American citizens to be hauled off to jail for actions that no reasonable person would regard as crimes." In her chapter, Grace-Marie Turner describes measures enacted in the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996. The legislation created the national health care fraud and abuse control program and created numerous new federal health care crimes. Turner concludes that "the big dragnet for 'health care criminals' is threatening and intimidating innocent doctors as well as creating an unhealthy climate of fear and defensiveness that is having an adverse impact on the medical profession."
Click here to read the chapter.