Healthcare in the National Privacy Law Debate

Congress is debating whether to enact a national privacy law.  Such a law would upend the approach that has been taken so far in connection with privacy law in the United States, which has either been sector specific (healthcare, financial services, education) or has addressed specific practices (telemarketing, email marketing, data gathering from children).  The United States does not, today, have a national privacy law.  Pressure from the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)¹ and from California, through the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA),² are driving some of this national debate.