Marjorie Taylor Greene Was Roasted For Claiming That Being Asked If She’s Vaccinated Is A Violation Of Her HIPAA Rights (It Isn’t)

Everyone at some point realizes that adults aren’t automatically smart. The same goes for politicians. In fact, they often claim to know things they know nothing about. There were two good examples of this on Tuesday. One came when an exasperated Dr. Anthony Fauci schooled Senator Rand Paul, who he told him point blank, about the Wuhan “lab leak” conspiracy theory, “you don’t know what you’re talking about.” The other, no surprise, came from Marjorie Taylor Greene.

Hot off being banned for 12 hours from tweeting due to COVID-19 misinformation, the controversial representative walked into it again. During a press conference, a journalist asked Greene — whose attempt to appeal a $500 fine, issued for not wearing a mask in the House back in May, was met with failure — the million dollar question: Is she, in fact, vaccinated. She pleaded the 5th, sort of, claiming that was a “a violation of my HIPAA rights.”

Greene was referring to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, which protects personal information acquired by health officials, such as doctors, from fraud and theft. This poses another question: Does someone, such as a journalist or a potential employer or even the staff at a movie theater, asking about one’s vaccination status violate the HIPAA?

It does not.

Plenty of articles have been published in the last handful of months as vaccine skeptics have tried to float this idea. Here’s one, from no less a source than the HIPAA Journal. All have reached the same conclusion: HIPAA does not protect one from revealing whether or not one is a health threat, including for the highly contagious and transmissible COVID-19. The closest such a question would come to an HIPAA violation is if someone asked her doctor to reveal her status, which is not what happened at this presser.

Some broke down how it really works.

https://twitter.com/TweetFiction/status/1417596831761063940

https://twitter.com/OliviaMesser/status/1417609291339546628

CNN’s crack fact checker Daniel Dale pointed out Greene has done this on multiple occasions yet always seems to miss, somehow, when she’s been debunked.

Others simply roasted her for the confidence with which she revealed she has no idea what she’s talking about.

https://twitter.com/JanNWolfe/status/1417595913376239617

https://twitter.com/BobbyBigWheel/status/1417602055280201733

Others read this as a possible confession that, yes, she has been vaccinated, which would appall her base.

https://twitter.com/davidmweissman/status/1417594022793723904

Greene’s vaccine stubbornness comes at a particularly awkward time for her party. A number of prominent conservatives, noticing the fact that the vast majority of new cases and deaths are among the unvaccinated, have had an about-face, and are now imploring their viewers to get dosed already. That even Sean Hannity is doing more to save people than Marjorie Taylor Greene really does say something.