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There's no clear-cut, doctrinal, or official Roman Catholic stance on HIPAA. In general, Catholic organizations willingly comply with HIPAA. To that point, a quick search shows a lot of Catholic organizations describing their members' rights under HIPAA.
More notably, if there were a doctrinal issue with a national policy like HIPAA on any grounds, that of subsidiarity or otherwise, I would expect to see a statement and/or resistance from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. For instance, there are numerous statements and commentaries opposing portions of the Affordable Care Act. Not so with HIPAA. The only mention on their site is a wellness document, in which the rationale for requiring "new sisters" to provide HIPAA and DPOA forms is summarized like so:
We bind ourselves to the members of the community, trusting in their faithfulness to support us.
So, it seems to me that the USCCB, or whatever subsidiary this is, feels no need to object to these policies. And to the contrary is highly respectful of them, pointing out that the HIPAA release papers demand is justified by the intended level trust and support in their community, which implicitly makes the request a bit extraordinary. Whether that level of respect for HIPAA and medical privacy extends to every "application" may be a different matter.
So, there are two things to keep in mind:
There may be moral issues with certain applications of HIPAA. Presently, the moral issues are either isolated or negligible enough in the eyes of the Catholic Church to warrant widespread Catholic compliance.
As to whether HIPAA erodes parental rights, maybe. Maybe not. With respect to parental rights and responsibilities, I would personally be inclined to argue in favor of HIPAA or HIPAA-like legislation for two reasons:
And to the extent that any parent succeeds in charitably correcting their kids' behavior with due mercy, I presume the kids will be open about their lives. To the extent that any parent reacts selfishly, degrading, devaluing, or disproportionately punishing, I suspect that kids will be private about their sins.
HIPAA lets doctors do their work without forcing them to double as spies for parents. And it lets kids seek needed treatment without worrying that their doctor is a spy! And this agreement, I suspect, does not stand in the way of a healthy parent-child relationship.
Upvote:0
From what I know of HIPAA, I don't think it contradicts Catholic social teaching. The purpose of HIPAA was two-fold: to protect employees from losing group health coverage when losing/changing jobs, and to allow health workers to share patient information in a way that keeps patient information secure and reduce fraud (stolen information). Just as mentioned in the article you linked to, parents have the right to their child's information unless state law prohibits it. So I don't think the question is whether or not HIPAA is unjust, rather, whether the state law that trumps it is lawful.