>>What is so special about her medical history?
>>Car buyers now can, and should have the ability to, learn whether or not the clunker I'm trying to pawn off has been in accident.
>>Insurers now can , and should have the ability to, check my driving record to see if I'm a menace on the road.
>>Police now can, and should have the ability to, check for outstanding warrants on a routine traffic stop.
>>Shouldn't a would-be-suitor have an ethical right to know that the target of his affections is pregnant- or having an abortion?
>>What gives pregnant women special privacy status?
>>On the other hand, let's suppose the lady is found passed out in her car by a passing cop. If that cop could know that she was pregnant, it might save her life.

This isn't about not sharing of *any* data which would be absurd; you scoffed at the HIPAA regs that are there to support information sharing while reassuring patients that it's not the Wild West. Apart from obligations for audit if receiving public funds, HIPAA requires that you record it when you grant access to medical records (which common sense most of us were already doing anyway), formalizes patient rights to access their own records, requires encryption if you put data onto a device, and requires you to contract these same obligations to third party business associates. Hardly earth-shattering stuff. The ACA carried the "we need to share" meme further, tying EHR grants to appropriate sharing of data.

So nobody except you and your straw men suggests that there should be no sharing of data or that it should be made difficult. What the HIPAA regs you are so disdainful about are supposed to prevent, is reckless spewing of material into the clear using the excuse that one day a policeman might find a pregnant lady passed out.

Certainly I agree that initially there was confusion, but by 2018 the cop would get onto his radio and the well-oiled HIPAA process would fire up to get him information he needs.