Posted on 05/10/2011 2:57:03 PM PDT by marktwain
As NPR reports, a Florida bill would bar doctors -- in particular pediatricians -- from asking their patients if they own guns. Gov. Rick Scott (R) is expected to sign the bill this week, which would make Florida the first state with such a law.
Scott's office would not release a timeline on when the governor plans to sign the bill. But Scott's press secretary, Lane Wright, told TPM "it's likely he will support it."
The National Rifle Association says doctors asking their patients about firearms in the home intrudes on Second Amendment rights. NRA lobbyists helped write the bill.
"We take our children to pediatricians for medical care -- not moral judgment, not privacy intrusions," former NRA president Marion Hammer said.
(Excerpt) Read more at tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com ...
The problem is that the federal government will require the Dr’s records to become computerized and accessible by law enforcement.
So prohibit that - force law enforcement to get a warrant for any medical records, and prohibit them from doing so simply to determine if the person owns any guns.
The answer to expansive government power is not expanding government power further.
I would imagine that all this is in that great ObamaCare Act somewhere in those 2000+ pages, wouldn’t you?
“The law violates the first amendment. They should be allowed to ask anything they want.”
Really? Are you gay? Do you participate in risky sexual behaviors? Do you cheat on your wife or important other? Do you have sex with children? Animals? etc, etc.
If you answer yes to any of the above, then does the Doc have the right to say he does not want you as a patient because you might have AIDs. Well, that IS the law, you can not refuse to treat the patient and you can not ask them those questions.
BUT you are saying it is ok to ask a parent or an elderly person if they own a gun or are a member of the NRA and then drop you as a patient and that is OK.
BS, the Amer Ped Association is the most liberal of the Med Societies, most of which are liberal, and they have an agenda and it ain’t the best care for your kids.
That is my observation as a Professor at a Medical School.
As usual, a tool of the Democrat Party
January 1999 Policy Statement entitled “The Role of the Pediatrician in Youth Violence Prevention and Clinical Practice and at the Community Level.” In that paper, the AAP advises pediatricians to screen children for risk factors indicating violence, such as:
— Whether the parents or family members have substance abuse problems
— Whether the parents are employed
— Whether any family members are involved in gangs
— Whether the parents spank their children
— Whether the parents watch violent television programs or keep guns in the home ……”
The Social Hygiene of Gun Control
By Timothy Wheeler, M.D.
A version of this article appeared in the March 20, 2000 Edition of CNSNews.com
A version of this article will appear in the Orange County Register
We share with physicians the private details of our lives so they can make us well. We depend on them to educate us in the promotion of health. How tempting it is, then, for a doctor to misuse that trust and offer a heartfelt political belief as medical advice. Especially if it’s for the good of children.
Pediatricians, regrettably, yielded to that temptation long ago with gun control. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) issued an update on Monday of its recommendations for preventive child health care. The guidelines refer doctors to a detailed action plan and set forth a multi-tiered advocacy effort. Specifically, the AAP advises doctors to “incorporate questions about guns into their patient history taking” and to “urge parents who possess guns to remove them, especially handguns, from the home.”
Doctors are supposed to work this political agenda on patients and their families, in their communities, and in government. The AAP guidelines urge lawmakers to ban handguns and “assault weapons” as “the most effective way to reduce firearm-related injuries.” Civil rights and the Constitution are not a hindrance to the AAP, the Second Amendment apparently regarded as an embarrassing nuisance.
Pediatrics has a long and proud tradition of promoting the well being of children. Widespread immunization against polio and diphtheria, for example, is the result of years of pediatricians’ vigilance and dedication. As a result, these old scourges are just a bad memory. Because of pediatricians, children in abusive homes are routinely rescued from injury or death.
But with these guidelines, pediatricians are redirecting the principle of prevention into our lives in a way never intended by their professional mandate.
The pediatrician who is the chief architect of the AAP’s anti-gun guidelines also founded the Handgun Epidemic Lowering Plan (HELP) Network. This is an exclusive organization dedicated to banning guns. Physicians who oppose the HELP Network’s radical agenda are not even allowed to attend the group’s conferences, a policy unthinkable in any scientific organization.
Public health often balances the general good against personal freedoms. One need only look at the resistance of some parents to child immunizations to understand the issues of personal autonomy at stake.
But when public health intervention undermines a constitutional right, citizens are justified in resisting it. Today there is no clearer example of a public health assault on civil liberties than the pediatricians’ campaign to persuade families that guns are bad.
There is another problem with the public health anti-gun crusade. It urges doctors to probe their young patients and their parents about guns in the home. Such meddling violates the boundary between a patient and doctor. Patients trust doctors to do what is right for them. When the doctor is driven by an ulterior motive such as trying to turn kids and their parents against gun ownership, she is committing an unethical act deserving of disciplinary action.
The AAP anticipates some patients may not go along quietly. The organization’s instructional packet for speakers includes a section on how to deal with “challenging individuals” who might object to the AAP’s gun demonization program on scientific or constitutional grounds.
American gun owners feel the heat being slowly turned up. Now they are coming to realize that Clinton-Gore and the American Academy of Pediatrics are making no exception for law-abiding gun owners. In the war of words, they are being lumped in with the very few criminal gun owners who make daily headlines. A suburban father who takes his kids to the shooting range is the moral equivalent of a crack-addicted father who abandons his child to the care of another criminal. No wonder the National Rifle Association is signing up new members so fast.
We have become accustomed to exaggerated rhetoric from politicians. But our doctors? Never. Never should we have to put up with feigned motives and false counsel from the professionals in whose hands we place our children’s wellness.
We can, however, believe the meaning of one pronouncement from the HELP Network’s founder: “Guns are a virus that must be eradicated.” American gun owners, you have been warned.
Visit Doctors for Responsible Gun Ownership | More on the Second Amendment
To go down the list:
1) The American Pediatric Association is a radical leftist controlled organization. They stated that it is the “ethical obligation” of pediatricians to ask parents if they have guns in their home. They also suggested that Pediatricians should threaten to deny service or deny service to parents who refuse to answer. Pediatricians are not numerous in Florida, so this could represent a significant hardship to parents.
2) Because of the HIPPA Act (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act), physicians whose patients receive any medical care via government programs, must have their records on computer accessible to a wide array of medical, insurance, government and police agencies, without warrant. This means that parental gun ownership would be known to them as well.
3) Last year, in Florida, again, a State representative and his wife, seeking to adopt, were questioned by the adoption agency about their gun ownership. He was immediately concerned that gun ownership might be used as a pretext to deny adoption to prospective parents. So he sponsored a bill that would *prohibit* adoptive agencies from using gun ownership to deny them a child.
At the time, Democrats derided the bill, saying it was “Pandering to the NRA”.
4) In other States, Child Protective Services already take into account parental gun ownership, the ability of children to access guns, the training of children to use guns, or the parent discharging a gun under any circumstance while the child watches, in determining if a parent is “fit” to raise their child.
Since these criteria are not “exclusively” enough to take away children, they are excused as “just some of many questions”. But in combination with other factors, they certainly may be used to justify the State taking away children.
The problem is that pediatricians have been pushing a political agenda, and that doctors have increasingly become an arm of the State.”
This is exactly right. Moreover, the left has greatly influenced doctor training and has managed to get the Hippocratic oath changed. When coupled with AA, it is apparent that that the medical profession cannot be trusted...individual doctors, yes, but the profession as a whole, no.
I’ve been asked this question. Some doctors ask it when you first become a patient. I left it blank.
From the article:
“The public debate began when an Ocala, Fla. pediatrician refused to offer care when a mother refused to answer questions about guns in the home.”
Hummm. . . . glue gun, grease gun, staple gun, caulking gun, boat flare gun, and, my wife may have a cake decorating gun. Other than those, I forget.
When the hell did this start? Doctors asking patients about guns??????? Why???
Actually, lying is probably better than telling them to go screw themselves because it pollutes the database. If the database is full of misinformation, and they know that but don't know which bits, they'll never be able to use it.
Both of those statements are probably true to a certain extent. But I'd venture to guess that doctors in private practice nationally vote Republican by a fairly hefty majority. That's because the 'Rat party has made itself an enemy of practicing physicians with its ever-increasing government control (in the name of "regulation" for "public health") over the profession, both on a federal and state level - even before the added burdens of ObamaCare - and its obtuseness with respect to malpractice tort reform because of its alliance with the plaintiff's bar.
That doctor was an idiot, but it's not the government's role to tell idiot doctors what questions they may or may not ask, or which patients to see. If the doctor wants to ask certain questions and refuse to offer services to patients who refuse to answer those questions, the doctor should be free to ask the questions and refuse services to people who don't answer, just like a patient is free to refuse to see a doctor who asks the question. This "there oughta be a law" mentality is better suited to 'rats, not conservatives.
But if that's the case, then why don't they oppose adamantly anything that smells even potentially like a liberal plot, if not hunt down those responsible and harvest their organs at night in their homes?
“But I’d venture to guess that doctors in private practice nationally vote Republican by a fairly hefty majority. “
Perhaps you are referring to MDs over 50. I have been on the admissions committee at a med school and it is dominated by liberal women who accept, ready for the surprise, liberal women and the watch word is..... diversity!!!! Women and minorities are now the majority of med students. I believe nationally 54% of med students are female and another 10% or so minority so adult white males are no more than 45%. Qualifications and merit are not what dictates acceptance in to a med program.
I would say the majority of MDs at our school voted for Obama, from the Dean down. And I live in the South!
Thanks justiceseeker93.
>>At least in my state the best answer to “do you have guns in you home?” is “I’m not going to answer that question, I’m reporting you to the state medical examiners’ board for asking, and I’m getting myself and my family another primary care provider! Good day!”<<
That is excellent! Make it cost them.
>>Really? Are you gay? Do you participate in risky sexual behaviors? Do you cheat on your wife or important other? Do you have sex with children? Animals? etc, etc.<<
No, no, no and no, no, etc.
That’s one answer. Another would be “Do you?”
>>If you answer yes to any of the above, then does the Doc have the right to say he does not want you as a patient because you might have AIDs. Well, that IS the law, you can not refuse to treat the patient and you can not ask them those questions.<<
As far as I am concerned, that law is unconstitutional as well. It controls free speech.
>>BUT you are saying it is ok to ask a parent or an elderly person if they own a gun or are a member of the NRA and then drop you as a patient and that is OK.<<
No. I am saying that as a free human being and a citizen of the US, the constitution protects their God given right to ask any question they want. And you have the right to refuse to answer, or throw the question back to them, or any other way respond.
Their are two completely separate issues here. 1. can they ask. The constitution says they can. 2. Must you respond. No. You are not required to respond. They can infer anything they want from that. That is their right.
I’d refer them to “Nunya Bidness”..
Actually Obamacare is predicated on being able to fine (or tax) you for inactivity. Not answering a question could be construed as non-activity.
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