…and gun control. Just one more reason to oppose the plan. And it’s none of a doctor’s business how many guns I own.
22 thoughts on “Health Control”
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…and gun control. Just one more reason to oppose the plan. And it’s none of a doctor’s business how many guns I own.
Comments are closed.
Another hysterical non-issue. The VA (aka “the government”) has had medical records for millions of vets for decades — has any vet had his guns taken away, or been turned down at a gun store, because ATF accessed those medical records? HIPAA applies to all health care providers, public and private.
Hmm….well, if it’s all the same to them (and I know it isn’t), I’ll choose to not have my health records in the coming government database, which is to say, not go to a government doctor (which will be all of them.)
I love that Paul Helmke idiot: You worry enough about people carrying signs on sticks. He must go sleepless thinking about all the kids running with scissors every day.
One of the Obama strategies I’ve been most impressed with was his leaving gun control off the menu. It keeps the NRA out of the funding and political lobbying loop and lets them concentrate on socializing medicine and “transforming” America.
If those policies are frustrated, I expect gun control to come back with a vengeance.
I expect after the mid-term election gun control will be moot and I suspect Pelosi won’t touch it hoping to retain her speakership by a slim margin and Reed won’t touch it as he is in an uphill re-election fight.
All embracing gun control will do for them is make the impending ass whipping that much more severe. Lack of gun control may permit a few blue dogs to save their seats and perhaps Pelosi’s private Gulfstream.
“One of the Obama strategies I’ve been most impressed with was his leaving gun control off the menu. ”
This isn’t Obama’s strategy. Remember when he was keying up the mexican guns meme and Pelosi and Reed slapped him down.
I guess some people remember the defeated sitting speaker of the house Tom Foley.
Not too many years ago the USAF started a personal halth kick. One of the tools they used was an annual health risk assessment. It was an innocuous questionaire which asked things like “how often do you exercise?” “do you smoke?” “how many servings of veggies and fruits do you eat a day?” all the standard crap we get preached at about all the time. But towards the end ot the questionnaire was “Do you keep a firearm at home?” Now, you could argue that a “yes” to that questions boosted your personal health score (i.e. lowered your risk) but somehow I doubt that was the intent. Most guys I know refused to answer that question. But, if you think there aren’t people out there that will try to make a link between health care and firearms, you are quite mistaken.
I’ll choose to not have my health records in the coming government database, which is to say, not go to a government doctor (which will be all of them.)
You could move to Canada — the doctors there don’t work for the government. The UK is the only developed country where most doctors are government employees, and even in the UK you can choose to go to a private doctor instead (if you can afford it).
And of course there’s nothing before Congress that will turn any, much less all, private doctors into government employees. But why talk about reality when you can talk about paranoid fantasies instead?
HIPAA applies to all health care providers, public and private.
HIPAA was just passed when a University professor managed to find away to acquire Dr. Atkins medical records.
Then there were the State Department employees fired last year for snooping at Obama’s passport records.
The state worker that was fired for looking up dirt on Joe the Plumber.
Pretending partisan bureaucrats won’t abuse government records is naive.
Pretending partisan bureaucrats won’t abuse government records is naive.
Pretending that private sector bureaucrats won’t abuse medical records is also naive. But in both cases there are ample legal penalties.
And of course there’s nothing before Congress that will turn any, much less all, private doctors into government employees.
Yeah, that’s now fascism works — it’s a de facto thing. Even so, the government database is bad enough. You did read that part, right? Oh that’s right, you haven’t read the bill…
Yeah, next thing you know the government will collect email addresses and personal information without the person’s knowledge…oh wait.
Pretending that private sector bureaucrats won’t abuse medical records is also naive. But in both cases there are ample legal penalties.
As usual the “ample” legal penalties are much more effective against a private sector bureaucrat and his employer. My impression is that for whatever reason, they are far less likely to abuse their position than a corresponding public employee would.
But in both cases there are ample legal penalties.
The government caps the penalties it can suffer.
The more I think about it, the more I’m amazed that the gun-toters weren’t forcibly disarmed. When I went to a 2000 Bush rally at Skip and Muffy University (aka SMU) I was forced to surrender my sign on a stick. (It read: “Al Gore The Manchurian Candidate” – a reference to his questionable Chinese-connected fundraising. Google the name Maria Hsia for details.)
Didn’t get there in time to get a seat in the auditorium; like a lot of others I had to stand outside.
The guy who took the sign was pretty huffy about it and offered no explanation. Later I learned that a female volunteer had saved the sign and kept it where I could retrieve it after the rally. She explained that the rules forbade the use of wood in protest signs – the sticks could be used as weapons.
“Pretending that private sector bureaucrats won’t abuse medical records is also naive. But in both cases there are ample legal penalties.”
I couldn’t let this go. It is SO stupid. Private bureaucrats ALREADY have millions of medical records with no signs of abuse because they don’t have the POWER to do anything with them.
Private bureaucrats ALREADY have millions of medical records with no signs of abuse because they don’t have the POWER to do anything with them.
Of course they could — they could sell them to insurance companies looking to avoid expensive customers, or employers who don’t want to hire people with potentially expensive medical problems. They could sell the records of celebrities to the tabloids. They could blackmail people with embarrassing medical issues. All of these things are possible, and potentially lucrative, but they don’t happen often because there are stiff penalties.
Similarly, the VA has millions of medical records, and the ATF cares about keeping guns out of the hands of the mentally disturbed, but I’m not aware of any case where VA medical records were abused by the ATF. Again, it’s because there are stiff penalties (see the post above mentioning various people who lost their jobs when they looked at or leaked government records).
Which is all to say: worries about gun control are not a reason to oppose health care reform, or electronic medical records.
Are you being obtuse on purpose or don’t you know the difference between theft and and the ability of government to make it legal to share records?
One of the gambits the gun-control crusade has used in the past is the claim that “gun violence” is a “public health crisis”. So fear of what might find it’s way into the fine print of the 1000 page bill for health care reform are well placed.
” it’s none of a doctor’s business how many guns I own.”
I respectfully disagree. Some health problems are incompatible with gun ownership. Two examples; I would be very unhappy indeed about the idea that someone near me, who happens to have paranoid schizophrenia, owns any guns at all. I wouldn’t be all that happy with being near a Parkinson’s sufferer who is carrying a gun, either.
the ability of government to make it legal to share records?
So do you support closing down the VA health system, in order to protect the 2nd amendment rights of veterans? Closing down the DOD health system to protect the gun rights of servicemen and women?
Note that nothing in the health bills being discussed would put personal medical records in government hands — we’ll all still be seeing private doctors and hospitals, unlike vets and active duty military personnel. So it would take more than repealing HIPAA and allowing the ATF to look at government medical records — it would also require a law to let the ATF look at private medical records. There are much more likely things to worry about (e.g. asteroid impacts).
So Jim, when did you stop beating your wife?
Yes , Jim, the bill does put records in the hands of the government. Every time the government pays a health bill, they know your medical condition. It doesn’t have to be ATF, it could be Homeland Security or what ever agency. Obama has 39 czars making policy decisions without oversight from Congress. He wants single payer. Your obtuseness or naiveté makes you a perfect tool for socialism or totalitarianism.