Posted on 10/12/2011 9:23:23 AM PDT by MichCapCon
Gov. Rick Snyder recently proposed an unprecedented plan to have doctors report the Body Mass Index of individual children into a state database and tracking system (the Michigan Care Improvement Registry). Contrary to the governor’s claim, this is not anonymous reporting. The records in this database would be accessible not just to doctors and nurses, but also to schools, day care providers and insurance companies — all without parental consent. Specific children could be tracked over time, as could their compliance (or lack thereof) with a doctor's recommendations.
The scientific and statistical reality of this intrusiveness is impossible to ignore. The data gathered will be spotty and incomplete; Black and Hispanic children will be disproportionately affected; BMI reporting will not decrease childhood obesity; and the community wellness programs this would presumably facilitate do not have a record of decreasing childhood obesity.
Finally, from a purely practical standpoint, the time spent reporting is not insignificant. In a typical office with 10,000 MCIR patients, at a rate of one minute per record, a full-time nurse would spend more than one month each year just reporting BMI data.
But all those details pale alongside the deeper ethical issues involved. Gov. Snyder is asking and expecting doctors to violate our Hippocratic Oath.
(Excerpt) Read more at michigancapitolconfidential.com ...
Choo choos and chubby children are RINO Rick’s greatest issues.
Thank God the Legislature is doing the heavy lifting where it counts.
We need to have BMI reporting for Levin and Stabenow.
I understand being a RINO in Michigan...but tell me, why?
Does even a plurality of the citizens of MI support this? I can’t imagine they do.
And the First Wookie.
Some parents will become reluctant to bring their children to the doctor, unless it’s an emergency.
RINO rick is a result of democrat crossovers and a GOP heavy field. Bernero was so pathetic that even the unionistas went GOP rather than vote for him.
I voted for Hoekstra in the primary. A RINO in his own right but not an Ann Arbor “republican” like Snyder.
Welcome to zerocare.
Just say Hell NO!
1. The person who dreamed up the BMI said explicitly that it could not and should not be used to indicate the level of fatness in an individual.
The BMI was introduced in the early 19th century by a Belgian named Lambert Adolphe Jacques Quetelet. He was a mathematician, not a physician. He produced the formula to give a quick and easy way to measure the degree of obesity of the general population to assist the government in allocating resources. In other words, it is a 200-year-old hack.
2. It is scientifically nonsensical.
There is no physiological reason to square a person's height (Quetelet had to square the height to get a formula that matched the overall data. If you can't fix the data, rig the formula!). Moreover, it ignores waist size, which is a clear indicator of obesity level.
RINO Rick at it again.
Any metric that classifies Troy Polamalu of the Pittsburgh Steelers as “obese” is full of excrement:
5’10”, 210 lbs = BMI of 30.1, “obese” category.
This has already been implemented re: people on Medicare.
A year ago my primary care MDs office functioning was in a state of “unrest”, as federally approved system designers were there for at least a week - training the MDs, nurses, and office staff in how to use the Obamacare record-keeping requirements. All patient info was being transferred into government-proscribed laptops. As part of the Obamacare requirements, certain aspects of the patient’s info must appear on every invoice. Included are body mass index, and whether or not the patient smokes.
Obviously, a copy of the invoice goes directly to Medicare (for billing) - and with it, some of your private info.
What are the chances of certain claims being denied because your BMI makes you a “poor risk” for certain treatments? Or that because you smoke, you’re not worthy of certain treatments? What other reason could there be for such info being on the invoice?
Sarah was sooooo right: death panels.
Probably important: my doctor is in private practice, BUT as a business it’s under the auspices/umbrella of the county hospital - which in turn is under the umbrella of a huge/famous/excellent hospital in St. Louis.
Under the rules/requirements of Obamacare, hospitals aren’t REQUIRED to “subscribe” - but if they don’t, there’ll be no federal $$s, and being accredited could prove “difficult”. As for doctors - if they hope to have hospital privileges, they will have to “subscribe” to Obamacare and its endless regulations.
Without hospital privileges, your doctor can still treat you as a patient - but he will not be allowed to file Medicare claims, and if you need to be hospitalized he can not treat you there.
This is a small portion of what’s in store for us - and our doctors - if Obamacare doesn’t get repealed. If it stays - it goes into full effect in 2014.
For a mathematician he sure was lazy. BMI doesn't work right for the short and tall. Because we are 3D and not 2D raising to the power of 2.5 would have been more accurate. We live in the computer age and should improve the formula.
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