Posted on 03/12/2011 8:24:19 AM PST by MedNole
This alert was recently sent out to the Florida Medical Association's members, presaging a special-interest free-for-all as it tussles with the NRA over its bill banning doctor inquiries about gun ownership.
Dear Colleagues,
As you have probably heard, there is legislation moving in the Florida Legislature, SB 432 and HB 155, which is a major intrusion into the patient-physician relationship. These bills place the government in the middle of the relationship between doctors and our patients by regulating what questions physicians can ask during a private medical examination. This legislation criminalizes doctors who ask their patients about gun ownership to ascertain accurate and complete patient history as well as advise patients on gun safety. The bill also prohibits physicians from discharging a patient from his or her practice based on the patient’s refusal to answer a question. This is an inappropriate intrusion of government into the bond that exists between doctors and their patients. The FMA is adamantly opposed to these bills.
We urge you to contact your hometown legislators today and tell them that physicians strongly oppose SB 432 and HB 155 because it puts the government in the middle of the private relationship between physicians and their patients. At a time when we are facing a physician shortage and competing with other states to retain and attract physicians, HB 155 sends the wrong message. This legislation, if passed, would make Florida the only state in the nation to pass such an extreme measure and would send the message to doctors all over the country that Florida is an unfriendly place to practice medicine.
(Excerpt) Read more at tampabay.com ...
There is also the potential, very likely to occur, for anti RKBA physicians to report anyone they don't approve of to government agencies as unfit to own firearms. Any physician has the power to declare anyone mentally unstable for any reason, valid or not. Even if a trumped up diagnosis didn't stick it could only be overturned at great cost to the victim.
This is, in fact, the hidden agenda of those who started the plan to question patients about guns.
Don't let this physicians lobby fool you, there really is a hidden agenda having nothing to do with medicine.
“Are we that weak?”
THEY ASK YOUR KIDS!!!!!
Doubtful?
Maybe it was the early 80’s but there is nothing doubtful about my experience with doctors in Pennsylvania asking about guns in my home.
And as an earlier poster, Crim, pointed out the CDC was behind it.
Thanks for the memory jog, Crim.
Hrm...just because YOU dont ask doesnt mean other dont...and even go so far as to DUMP patients who dont co-operate...
Abd since you ont ask the question....why do you care?
“Do physicians no longer have the right to free speech?”
You are really going to try and cloak a data gathering tool for the HHS as FREE SPEECH?
Really?
This isnt about health...it’s about gun control...
http://www.claremont.org/projects/projectid.39/project_detail.asp
You are quite welcome.
You don't need to know about whether I've got a gun in my home to make a diagnosis regarding my health. Even if I walk into your office with a bullet wound you don't need to know where the gun is (a law enforcement inquiry, not a medical issue) to tell me I've suffered a gunshot wound. If I'm not suffering from a gunshot wound there is no medical basis for the inquiry.
and unless you are certified to teach gun safety you don't need to get into that area either.
So your premise is wrong...there is nothing about an APPROPRIATE physician-patient relationship that this bill touches.
Regards...
Meh...fast finger fud.
Then I guess he also needs to know if you have knives, a roof you can jump off of, a car you can drive over a cliff with etc.
If a person is going to commit suicide, do you think they might also be compelled to lie about their gun ownership?
Likewise, preventive medicine would make it important to know if you’re caring for a pediatric patient whether or not parents store their firearms in a way that kids can’t access them.
What? And if the answers to those questions are not satisfactory, what course of action do you suggest the doctor take? Should he be held liable if he does not take any action? Is he compelled to report you to the authorities so they can then confiscate your weapons?
There is a lot of background to this, and considerable leftist duplicity.
It began with the CDC in Atlanta, which decided out of the blue that gun rights “are a public health issue”, instead of a constitutional right, and so the CDC had the authority to create gun control regulations. (This scheme didn’t last long, for obvious reasons.)
Then the leftist controlled Pediatric Physicians Association decided that Pediatricians were *ethically obligated* to ask parents about guns in the home, “because guns are a *health risk* for children”.
And this got downright evil in a hurry, first because of the HIPPA Act of 1996, which made private health records accessible to lots of commercial and governmental organizations, instead of confidential between physicians and patients; *and* has a provision that doctors *must* disclose personal medical information when required to do so by law, such as reporting “suspected child abuse” to state child welfare agencies.
And owning guns just happens to be regarded as “child abuse” by some radicals, or as a “potential home hazard”.
So a medical file mentioning gun ownership might be used by a State welfare agency in determining of someone was a “fit parent”, or if they should be allowed to adopt a child while having a “potential home hazard”.
In any event, after all of this, and some parents being menaced by their Pediatrician about whether they had guns in their home, even being denied service if they refused to answer, you can see that this was not just a bolt from the blue.
This is why the NRA and the FMA are at loggerheads. While doctors want the freedom to ask their patients questions, any answer that they write down may be used *against* their patient by private corporations or government agencies.
So in truth, if doctors wanted this right, then they should have lobbied long and hard against the HIPPA Act, and its wholesale elimination of the doctor-patient privilege.
But now it’s too late. So the only alternative left is to pass a law forbidding doctors from asking this and related questions. Sorry if it crimps your style, and makes you less able to do your job. But it’s your own fault.
I would think gun cleaning supplies are more dangerous to children than the guns themselves. Those solvents will strip paint from a car and the fumes are toxic. Doctors should be able to ask any question they like and their patients may politely refuse to answer or find a new doctor.
IF my doc asked me about guns....I’d look innocently at him/her and say....”guns?” I don’t store guns”
That and a bucket of water....which is kills more young kids than guns...
I am a professor at at medical school and it is a joke to call any medical association “conservative”. Maybe a few of the old bald white guys over 60 but the post Viet Nam generation are as liberal as they get and the new “diversity” crowd are radically liberal.
You will never hear the words “merit” or “competence” in regards to hiring someone. The new buzz words in every sentence are “diversity” and “compliance”.
1. What church do you go to?
2. Do you quarter soldiers in your house?
3. Have you attended any political rallies lately? Which ones? Any in Wisconsin?
4. Do you have any outstanding warrants? Any mediocre ones?
5. Have you ever served on a jury? How did you vote? Why?
6. Which bail bondsman would you recommend?
That’s all well and good if there are lots of doctors available. But since the Pediatric Association has declared that Pediatricians are “ethically” bound to ask about guns, your choices are limited to the few, if any Pediatricians in the entire State that don’t belong to their organization, *or* taking your small child to a GP willing to take small children, and turning down any pediatric referrals.
Yet it raises an unrelated problem. It’s not just about guns, but that anything you tell your physician can no longer be considered private information. That is a huge loss of right and privilege.
So the greater question is what else may your physician ask you that you should refuse to answer as it may harm you if that information is known? And how about things a pediatric doctor asks your child?
“Have your parents ever given you a spanking? Did they spank you on your pants, or on your bare bottom? Did they use their hand or hit you with something? Did it hurt and did you cry? Do you think they were wrong for ‘beating’ you?”
While it may be justified for a doctor to ask these questions, do you really want a Child Welfare Agency person to know these answers? How about an insurance company or a police agency?
That was my first reaction - just lie to 'em.
In a similar vein, the VA routinely asks me if I am depressed. Never have been, in their context, but if so, I would lie there too. I understand that if you respond with a "yes", you go on the Brady list as a "potential suicide" and will therefore fail the background check. Try getting that removed.
The AMA is not conservative, and this line of questioning was pushed on docs by the now leftist AMA. The only remedy at this point is to stop it legislatively. With th ehuge databases Obamacare is creating, you don’t want your doctors to be acting like KGB agents collecting information on who has guns. Yes, I’d be happy to throw their white-coated posteriors in jail for trying to advance the cause of the police state. I’d execute them for abortions.
It is not the job of a pediatrician. This is just a more subtle version of “it’s for the children”. There is no effective protection for the databases these medical snitches are creating, no matter what some regulation will say. Jail would be an eloquent disincentive.
Free speech? They are collecting information for a police state apparatus. WTF are you thinking?
We have enough laws, for pete’s sake. If your doctor asks that question and you find if offensive and intrusive, fire him!
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