DALE MCFEATTERS Think before checking box on the health form

Sometimes a state, in its zeal to do good, gets carried away. Pennsylvania did, and it's worth examining a well-intentioned but over-zealous law lest more states are tempted to copy it.
Last February, Keith Emerich's family doctor dispatched the 44-year-old print shop pressman to the local hospital to have an irregular heartbeat checked. While there he told the examining physician -- in confidence, he assumed -- that he regularly drank six to 10 beers at home at night after work. His work-up at the hospital showed no blood-alcohol level.
Two months later, the state informed him it was suspending his driver's license, even though his last traffic offense had been a 23 years earlier.
Emerich had run afoul of a 1976 state law that requires doctors to report patients with conditions that might impair their ability to drive. Pennsylvania is one of only six states to have such a law, but Pennsylvania's goes further than most by including possible alcohol and drug abuse.
The carrot in Pennsylvania's approach is that the reporting doctor is assured confidentiality and legal immunity; the stick is that Pennsylvania is one of three states that allow the doctor to be held liable if the patient were subsequently at fault for a wreck.
Let's be clear: Emerich had done nothing wrong. He answered a question about his personal habits. The doctor's report consisted of checking a yes-or-no box.
He had to go to court, dipping into his 401(k) to do so, to get his license back. The county court upheld the law but gave Emerich restricted driving privileges only on condition that he install a $1,000 ignition interlock which screens his breath for alcohol before the car will start.
As Emerich pointed out, he's out a lot of money from contesting the suspension; he's been embarrassed by having to cadge rides to work for four months; he's been stigmatized by being forced to use an interlock; and, "All I did was go to the doctor."
Health problem
Emerich's widely publicized case will likely lead at least some Pennsylvanians, who have a health problem that they fear might jeopardize their licenses, to lie to their doctors or simply keep quiet.
This is the nanny state gone too far. The principle of doctor-patient confidentiality is not immutable, but the exception is not "gee, this guy might go out and do something stupid" but the American Medial Association's standard of "a clear risk to public safety."
Emerich's case might be an exception, but in an era of decreasing privacy and growing government intrusion it might be a harbinger.
Scripps Howard News Service