If I understand correctly, exactly the legal approach I advocate for protected health information already exists for classified national security information. It may not be perfect, as demonstrated by The Pentagon Papers Case, but it provides some measure of protection. I must say I'm impressed. It improves substantially on past proposals. Consider the newspaper that receives an anonymous package containing the protected health information of a political candidate.
Computers make it practical to expose hundreds of millions of records as easily as one record.
I fear that the prize of laundering the entire nation's protected health information would be irresistibly appealing to would-be cyber criminals. I further fear that criminal prosecution is insufficient deterrence to groups who already render up members willing to perform assassination for their cause. It comes down to a first amendment issue and the legal approach. In other words, we need a prior restraint on speech. The existing model act applies only to those who obtain the information legally.