Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times.

A few weeks ago, Republican Matt Huggans began his mission to alert local residents to the great potential harm to our medical privacy as a result of four bills supported by our six-year incumbent state representative, Cindy Roe, one of which was co-sponsored by her.

These bills led to the creation of the Oklahoma Health Information Exchange (HIE), required that all healthcare providers who use Medicaid and Medicare must submit the medical records of their patients to the exchange, and authorized the state's Healthcare Authority to propose far-reaching rules that will have a great implication on our future medical privacy.

Matt believes this dangerous new expansion of government could have many potential bad outcomes ranging from the commercialization of our health data to hacking, to a single, government-overseen repository for vaccination tracking and data collection; basically, a one-stop shop for the health bureaucracy to know whether your health decisions are their health decisions.

Then there's the potential for data breaches.

The state spent almost 50 million dollars on a software platform for this project.

That platform was developed by a New Zealand company that, as reported by Australian media, was involved in Australia's health information sharing platform, a platform that a government report cited as allowing providers to access records without patient approval and potentially cross-posting records to account holders who shouldn't have been given access to the data.

That government report has since disappeared from the government's web page but was captured by the Internet Archives Wayback machine and is now preserved at MattHuggans.com for posterity.

The state's process for awarding the substantial contract was reportedly deeply flawed and arbitrary, costing $8.1 million more than what a local provider had bid.

Furthermore, the winner of the state contract later formed a partnership with this lower-bidding local provider, prompting significant and justified concern about the integrity of the entire process.

The Orwellian impacts of Senate Bills 1337 and 1369, which Roe supported, and Senate Bill 574, which Roe authored, are public and well-documented, and they have touched off a very public fight over the government's ability to force the sharing of our medical records.

A sampling of this coverage can be found below.

Letter from a Health Provider to Their Patients

(LINK)

This letter reveals the costs and the trauma faced by healthcare providers as they were forced to participate in giving up our medical records to the new centralized system.

The letter describes the compliance costs imposed on this unwilling healthcare provider, costs that are likely to be passed on.

Upon reading this letter, one has to ask, what kind of state leader would support this?

Oklahoman News Story

(LINK)

This story describes how the medical providers are protesting Roe's changes.

KFOR Coverage

(LINK)

This coverage suggests that 49 percent of Oklahoma counseling providers were considering moving out of state or giving up their license if the proposal had been applied to them.

The StateImpact Breakdown of the Proposal

(LINK)

This is perhaps the best coverage of the plan. It includes a quote from the Fraternal Order of Police spokesman stating,

"If this information is uploaded, it just gives one more avenue for someone to use their personal information against them, because keep in mind, this information will be shared with every provider in the state.”

Fraternal Order of Police Fact Sheet

(LINK)

The FOP filed a legal action against the plan. It declares that,

"The creation of the Oklahoma Health Information Exchange is the most dangerous attack on Oklahomans’ privacy in the history of the state.”

This fact sheet raises the specter that our medical information might be commercialized and sold off, and declares the action to be unconstitutional.

It is a must-read for anyone who wants to know the far-reaching, frightening applications of Roe's vote and co-sponsorship.

Oklahoman News Story

(LINK)

The Oklahoman's coverage of the FOP's lawsuit.

The Single Paragraph Response from Cindy Roe

(LINK)

In a single-paragraph response, Roe emphatically highlights the inefficiencies of medical record sharing to justify the new government mandate.

However, she omits mention of the private sector health information exchanges and personal health record models.

These systems, driven by the free market and accountable to the patient rather than the government, are already equipped to offer effective solutions.

There's no need for a government mandate.

If a patient wants to use one of the private sector solutions, free from government intrusion, then that is his rightful choice.

In fact, and quite ironically, the government chose one of these private providers to provide the service—on behalf of the government—only now, instead of a medical provider having the free will to choose which network best fits his patients' needs, he will be forced to deal with the government mandates, fees, and regulations.

Roe claims that the sharing will be HIPAA compliant, but in the words of one provider, quoted in the Oklahoman,

"sharing those records across a statewide health information exchange system would violate patients' rights under federal law."

Roe points to the large number of legislators who supported this bill, but that certainly doesn't make it right.

What we should ask is, why couldn't Roe have been one of the principled few legislators who stood up to the pressure and said, "No!" to the Orwellian government mandate?

Just 13 years since the people of Oklahoma voted to ban centralized medical data, why are so few in the legislature willing to stand up?

It's an extremely sad, heartbreaking state of affairs to see our liberties so trampled by so many legislations, both Democrat and Republican—the Oklahoma City Uniparty—and thus why we must begin again with new liberty-believing legislators, starting by replacing Roe.

Roe also bristled about Huggan's reference to Roe's support for the Healthcare Exchange in 2023.

Huggans had explained that Roe supported SB 1369 in 2023, a bill that required many healthcare providers to participate in the government mandated exchange; to be clear, Roe initially supported SB 1369 in 2022 and then supported an amendment to SB 1369's session law in 2023.

That amendment was in the form of HB 1688; it attempted to hoover up insurance information into the exchange and tried to assess a penalty of $1,000 per day on those who didn't comply.

Fortunately, this fourth bill, appeared to finally be one step too far for the Senate.

They killed the bill, notwithstanding the fact that Roe, who is the Chairperson of the Public Health Committee, once again, voted in support.

When the leftists in the Senate believe Roe has gone too far, it's bad.

Finally, Roe asks that the public should read the bills.

But she never gave a link by which the bills can be accessed.

Why is that?

If Roe really wanted the voters to read the bills that she's touting, shouldn't she provide the link?

It's actually Matt Huggans who is providing the links to the bills and who implores local voters to read these bills, to see what Roe is doing.

Here are those bills along with some key points the reader should navigate to in order to see the dastardly nature of these proposals.

Senate Bill 574, co-sponsored by Roe, take special note of Page 3, Subsection E, Paragraph 1:

It grants subscribing third parties a license to use your personal health data, something that you own, as a property right.

The government should never use the law to give a third party a license to use something that you own—especially your most sensitive personal records;

Senate Bill 1369, supported by Roe, Page 3, Subsection C:

Here, many healthcare providers are swept up into the centralized exchange;

Senate Bill 1337, supported by Roe, Page 22, Subsection L:

This requires Medicaid providers to submit their patients' data to the centralized exchange; and

House Bill 1688, supported by Roe, Section 9, Line 9:

It attempts to create a $1,000 per-day penalty on those who don't submit insurance information to the exchange.

Matt Huggans also suggests that the interested reader, who wishes to be truly informed, shouldn't just read the bills, but should also view the actual agency-proposed rules that the Healthcare Agency tried to enact pursuant to the Roe-supported SB 1369.

It's here where the reader will best observe the terrifying new regulations.

Page 5 contains the wide-ranging, costly mandate on healthcare providers as defined on Page 4. Notice the broad sweeping language the gathers up so many different categories of providers.

Now, equipped with all of this knowledge, Matt believes the voter will be prepared to see how Roe's defensive response is actually trickery, an act of covering up for what Roe and the state government are attempting to do: force our medical records into the centralized control of the government.

Matt remains committed to exposing the truth, thus he has taken the time to put together this in-depth response so as to truly inform the voters of the actual dangers we are facing.

It's in clear contrast to the poorly written, single paragraph distributed by Roe.

You need to know, and be aware of the government surveillance state that's being established and worse, of the obfuscation by those who campaign as conservative but are legislating as authoritarians.

And, you need a state representative who will communicate with you in the manner of this publication, with access to the real, usable information from which you can learn understand the full context of these important issues—unfiltered by the media or the political consultants who churn out useless, soundbyted mail pieces in order to re-elect the members of the Oklahoma City uniparty.

Fortunately, when the Health Care Authority, acting under the power given to them by Roe's votes, attempted to mandate the involvement of providers, Governor Kevin Stitt vetoed their attempt; however, Stitt isn't in office much longer, and we should assume that soon after he leaves, the Health Care Authority, still empowered to do this, thanks to Roe's vote, will attempt to do so again.

That's why we must elect new representatives who will repeal Roe's actions and bring state law back into compliance with the state constitution, and implement the will of the people: the clear Constitutional prohibition on centralizing access to medical data.

The fight against the government surveillance state is taking place on many fronts.

This includes the transportation plan known as track-and-tax, a plan already advanced once with the full support of Roe, that would literally turn every Oklahoma road into a toll road.

This plan is expected to return for another vote—after this year’s election.

And, that’s why we must elect strong, informed representatives who recognize the challenges of our times and the urgency of protecting our freedoms.

Allowing ineffective leaders like Roe to remain in office risks depriving future generations of the liberties our forefathers sacrificed so much to bequeath to us.

The responsibility to safeguard these freedoms is too significant to neglect and that's why, on June 18th, we must elect Matt Huggans as our next state representative and send a message to the whole State of Oklahoma, "Cindy Roe's big-government healthcare information sharing scheme has no place in our state!"