The effort we spend protecting medical records is out of all proportion to the damage done by any leaks. I really do not understand the reasoning. And this is effort that would otherwise be used to generate other economic benefits, like food, housing, medical treatments, etc.

Another problem is that these laws (HIPAA, etc) actually CONTRIBUTE TO the leaks, because they provide a huge blackmail incentive to hackers. The penalties are so large that hackers know they can extort giant payments from companies.

Also, it's no small loss that it's so difficult to use this data for legitimate research purposes now, depriving us of all the medical gains we otherwise would have.

Certainly, I would not want my records in the newspaper - but really what's the worst outcome? Everybody finds out just how much ED medication I take?

I suspect a lot of this legislation is (as usual) motivated the the businesses that stand to gain from it. It creates a large moat around existing large businesses that can afford to cooperate. And funnels a lot of money to the consultancies and other companies that work to comply with these policies.