Obama’s Gun Control Plan Changes Privacy Rules to Allow Doctors to Report Mentally Ill Patients to FBI

By Kaitlyn Schallhorn

While President Barack Obama’s planned executive action to decrease gun violence does include a plan for easier access to mental health care, it also calls for doctors to report mentally ill patients to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

According to details of the plan released by the White House, the rule allows for the Department of Health and Human Services to remove any barriers that could prevent health care providers from reporting patients with mental illnesses in order to disqualify those individuals from obtaining a firearm.

“Under this final rule, only covered entities with lawful authority to make the adjudications or commitment decisions that make individuals subject to the federal mental health prohibitor, or that serve as repositories of information for the [National Instant Criminal Background Check System] reporting purposes are permitted to disclose the information needed for these purposes,” a summary of the rule states. “The disclosure is restricted to limited demographic and certain other information needed for NICS purposes. The rule specifically prohibits the disclosure of diagnostic or clinical …Read the Rest

Source:: The Blaze