Florida Medical Ass'n v. U. S. Department of Health, Education & Welfare

FAY, Circuit Judge:

On March 30, 1978, the Florida Medical Association and six individual physicians, on behalf of all Florida physicians whose patients were beneficiaries of the Medicare program in 1977, brought a class action suit against the Department of Health, Education and Welfare to enjoin publication of a list which identifies by name every physician in the United States who treated Medicare beneficiaries in 1977, and states the amount of income he or she received from the program in that year. Plaintiffs alleged, inter alia, that publication of the list would violate the Freedom of…