guess i'm lucky, my Doc owns guns too...
Posted on 07/03/2012 4:42:34 AM PDT by MedNole
A federal judge has blocked the state of Florida from enforcing a new law pushed by firearm advocates that banned thousands of doctors from discussing gun ownership with their patients.
U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke, who had already issued a preliminary injunction last September, made her decision permanent late Friday when she ruled in favor of groups of physicians who asserted the state violated their free speech rights. She said the law was so “vague” that it violated the First Amendment rights of doctors, noting the legislation’s privacy provisions “fail to provide any standards for practitioners to follow.”
The physicians’ lawsuit, an ideological battle between advocates of free speech and the right to bear arms, has been dubbed “Docs vs. Glocks.” The state Department of Health could appeal her summary judgment, which addressed legislation signed into law last year by Gov. Rick Scott.
In her 25-page ruling, Cooke clearly sided with the physicians, saying evidence showed that physicians began “self-censoring” because of the “chilling” effect of the legislation.
“What is curious about this law — and what makes it different from so many other laws involving practitioners’ speech — is that it aims to restrict a practitioner’s ability to provide truthful, non-misleading information to a patient, whether relevant or not at the time of the consult with the patient,” Cooke wrote, citing the benefit of such “preventive medicine.”
A federal judge has blocked the state of Florida from enforcing a new law pushed by firearm advocates that banned thousands of doctors from discussing gun ownership with their patients.
U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke, who had already issued a preliminary injunction last September, made her decision permanent late Friday when she ruled in favor of groups of physicians who asserted the state violated their free speech rights. .
(Excerpt) Read more at miamiherald.com ...
Doc: Do you have any firearms in the house?
Me: No. But, Are you still having sex with children?
I am not ‘tied in knots.’ If you, as a doctor, do not ask stupid, nosey questions, good for you. I’ve been asked inappropriate questions before and I don’t cooperate with that. My children have been asked a bunch of inappropriate, self incriminating, questions by public school employees but they were taught about privacy boundries by us.
I gave my sisters a heads up not to permit doctors to collect inappropriate information on them. Two had docs asking about gun ownership on nosey surveys. This can be back door to gun registration when Washington has access to your medical records.
I wonder what you will do if the government requires that you collect inappropriate information on your patients in order for you to participate in their health care system. What are you going to do when they direct your medical treatment in a way that you find inappropriate or unethical for your patient. You should not permit paranoia to make you avoid dealing with and preparing for this new reality.
More and more, you are going to discover that with commiecare, you work for the government now just like public school teachers. One of the unintended consequences of socialized medicine is that the doctor/patient relationship must change now because docs answer to Washington and sooner or later, Unions, for political purposes as well as healthcare reimbursement purposes.
There is no reason that Americans should not be given a heads up about that ‘change.’ You should be smart enough to analyze this change for yourself as it relates to you, as a professional and think about how you are going to respond to get around this new bureaucratic political authority over you and your patients.
I’ve already decided. 1/1/14 I’m out of a career and livlihood. This monstrosity is costing me a lot more than the average person. There are a lot of us taking the same position. But I still don’t tell Washington e drugging I know or get upset over a question that I can choose how to answer or not answer. The real cost of Obama care is far more significant. And Im just losing my livlihood not my life
Another damned screwed up appointment from W.
I am sorry you are caught up in this disaster. I know several docs who are retiring early. They don’t want to lose the assets they currently have so close to retirement.
I have a brain surgeon nephew. Poor guy has school debt out the wahzoo. He took it on knowing his income would make it possible to pay it back. Now, he’s up the creek. However, he supported socialized medicine and I warned him about this exact problem he would face. So I don’t feel so bad for him. For a brilliant man, he’s not so much.
Yes but being in the medical field as I am(an RN of 26 years), one has to be very careful about documentation. The doctor might document an evasive answer regarding gun ownership but he can’t document “yes” or “no” when he has no proof. The first doctor that gets sued because he documents, based on his judgment,that there are guns in the house when there are none, (if a SWAT raid is initiated based on that or other actions such as attempts to get a person’s gun rights removed) will cause a chill in doctor patient relations far and wide.
A person also has certain rights to view his own medical records and can challenge the records if faulty, including suits against the doctor if he documents incorrectly leading to wrongful practise as well as loss of ones personal privacy, rights and even one’s freedom!
So I think we need to borrow the USAF’s line when asked about UFO’s, “I will neither confirm or deny the existence of such implements in my house-hold...!” Keep ‘em all guessing!
I once lived in Miami and know this “Miami Herald” to be a lib rag. As evidence, look on the second page of the story and you will see that a rep from the Brady Bunch states that guns kill eight children every day. The reporter does not challenge that statement.
As we all know, it may be true that eight gangbangers (ages up to nineteen, which is still in the range of what Brady and other liars say are “children”) are killed by guns every day. No loss, of course.
One could say..”as for information as to whether or not I have guns, the proper law enforcment officials may have those records should you wish to have them supeona’ed. Woe betied to you legally if you discover that I have no such weapons.”
It’s the right ruling. While the move in the medical community to have doctors lecture you about guns while you’re in your underwear is stupid, banning speech is bad.
The law was not about preventing doctors from asking questions of responsible adults, but of doctors asking vulnerable patients such as children about guns and putting the answers into government accessible data bases.
guess i'm lucky, my Doc owns guns too...
Exactly so.
They don’t ask about your cellphone use while driving, either.
Doctors aren’t safety experts, aren’t trained for it, and need to keep out of it.
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