Let's all belly up to the bar at Banco de Obama, as with Kansas City, Missouri's CERNER, a firm that has already, per Business Week, pulled down 1.7 Billion U.S. Dollars digitalizing your medical records. Thank God they also reported 95% of American prescriptions are still written on paper.

Yes, William C. Hughes knows Medco.

Yes, William C. Hughes really knows Express Scripts.

And, Caremark must surely be the same deal. Huge databases with your diagnosis or diagnoses, insurance information, medications, and personal data. Yes, Big Pharma knows where you live, but good luck to the elderly in finding a pharmacy that will deliver to your door. Disabled? Psychiatrically disabled? Forget it, you need to take more anti-anxiety medication and get in the car. Or, maybe your health plan forces you to request a 90 day supply by mail. Don't know computers, old-timer? You're out of luck, so you'd better get on that 800 number. Hello? It's a computer on the other end, right? Press the right button or speak clearly. The computer hung-up on you? Too bad, no medicine, but now you can spend the co-payment on high fat food at the dollar store.

Oh, you know how to use the computer? USPS will surely screw-up, "they" will have taken $10, $20, $30, or more out of your checking account--maybe automatically--and.....NO MEDICINE. At least CVS realized you can't buy Pampers or Huggies from Medco, can you? So, they bought Caremark. Express Scripts? Their HQ is in St. Louis, Missouri, so I shall defer all caustic comments, but I do remember the Clinton era fondly, including a big Express Scripts run-around on my analog Motorola mental health authority issued cell phone.

Moving to the Austro-Hungarian chopping block, here are the facts on the confidentiality of your medical records when it comes to things Hughes and-or CIA:

1960's = BREAK-IN
1970's = XEROX AND CARRY-OUT
1980's = FAX-OUT, OR COPY & CARRY-OUT
1990's = FLOPPY, E-MAIL, OR UPLOAD OUT
2000's = BIG GIGS ON EXTERNAL DRIVES "GONE MISSING"
2010's = HUGHES WIRELESS INTRUSION (A proprietary technology I've nicknamed "The Data Sucker")

Did I really help crank the sausage grinder on HIPAA implementation? Committees. Don't you love them, do-nothing bureaucrats? I quit mine, because no one listens to this Hughes, especially when I say things like the reason my ex worked at a psychiatric medical practice was to engage in cartage, without all of that Daniel Ellsberg-like fuss.

You'd think I'd get the "message" when I turned-on the six o'clock news and saw the spouse putting gas in the Fiat. The story had something to do with high prices for gasoline, as I recall. Damn, she looked good--and pissed-off. Where's that videotape? And, why is Fiat conquering the automobile industry and I'm homeless?

If Boris Yeltsin were still alive, I'd borrow a tank.