Doctor doesn't want to treat Obama supporters

• bigkahuna

  ^^^Now I could see this being a legal issue.
  
  This doctor as openly refused to treat someone. Which is the differnce between this doctor and the one in the article. I'm guessing that he is safe because he is basing his refusal on his religious beliefs. Still, I would like to see how this would interpreted in court.
• LJ

  

  bigkahuna wrote: ^^^Now I could see this being a legal issue.
  
  This doctor as openly refused to treat someone. Which is the differnce between this doctor and the one in the article. I'm guessing that he is safe because he is basing his refusal on his religious beliefs. Still, I would like to see how this would interpreted in court.

  Dr's can refuse treatment to strangers. Issues only come about when they already have a dr/patient relationship or the stranger is "in extremis". Dr's constantly turn people away "Sorry i am not taking on new clients" "Sorry I am not seeing that type of case anymore".
• Little Danny

  

  Common law dictates a physcian has no duty to treat any patient as long as a relationship between the two does not exist. This is what is referred to as a no duty rule based on the law of contracts. In order for a patient/physician relationship to exist, both parties have to voluntarily consent. Over the years, circumstances have loosened this contract such as EMTLA (which has to due with dumping patients from hosptial due to inability to pay) and antidiscrimination laws (most notably patient's with HIV and physcial disabilities).
  
  A doctor can disengage the patient/physcian relationship at any time just as long as the physician gives the patient proper notice in writing and gives the patient time to find a new physician (possibly even assisting in the patient's selection).
  As repeated by others before, a doctor can refuse treatment to someone who seeks their care. Using this situation, where the doctor may have a problem would be if he unilaterally dumps a patient without written if he was an existing patient and he disengaged the patient after discovering the patient supported Obamacare without written notice.
• Con_Alma

  bigkahuna wrote: ^^^Now I could see this being a legal issue.
  
  This doctor as openly refused to treat someone. Which is the differnce between this doctor and the one in the article. I'm guessing that he is safe because he is basing his refusal on his religious beliefs. Still, I would like to see how this would interpreted in court.

  ????
  
  I am no lawyer nor do I know the law regarding this issue.
  
  I am in business and I do not accept any and all clients. We tell people that up front in our consultation meeting. Everyone will not respond well to the way we choose to business and we know that and don't want those folks as clients. How might his practice be any different.
  
  He is open about the specialized services he provides to a clearly defined segment of the marketplace. That group is who he solicits as clients. It's not a business that for any and all people nor does he promote it as being such.
• bigkahuna

  I didn't say that it should be a legal issue or that he should be in trouble. I am just saying that comparing this these 2 doctors, I could see the one you referred to as being deemed illegal. I guess my question is has he ever been treating a patient, discovered that they use/have used birth control and thus "kicks them out"?
  
  I can see how he doesn't have to prescribe birth control, but how does he go about discovering if a patient uses it, and how does he go about from there?
  
  My thoughts between your business and his practice is that you can choose who you want to do business with. However, as a civil servant, a doctor isn't supposed to; well that's how we perceive it. For instance, I am willing to bet that I would get in a lot of trouble if I found out a student was doing something and thus chose not to teach him anymore.
  
  Like someone else said, I think it's the whole relationship thing. When did he find out that the woman was using birth control? Before he started treating her, or 6 months after? The same thing with the Obamacare doctor, would he be breaking the law if he began treatment with a patient for 6 months, found out he voted for Obama, and then dropped him because of it?
  
  It seems like there have been several laws put in place to allow people in the medical field the ability to refuse patients.
  
  I should have thought about this some more before I posted. My wife is a nurse in a nursing home. According to her, they refuse patients all the time for one thing or another. They have also removed patients for several reasons. (Wellbeing for the staff, insurance runs out...)
• Con_Alma

  bigkahuna...nor did I suggest you said it was a legal issue.
  
  I don't know how he determines if they do or do not use birth control. I don't know how he terminates client relationships. I am an acquaintance not an employee.
  
  He's a pretty forward, A type personality. I don't think it's an issue regarding who he will and will not serve in the community. It's been my experience that if you set the expectations as clearly as possible up front there's no issues when they are not met....relationship over.
  
  I know were I him and someone did not match my client fit or tried to hide relevant information regarding our professional relationship I would simply tell them they needed to find a new service provider and document the date I did so in their file.
  
  They began their agreement under false pretenses by omission. As their doctor I imagine he wouldn't accept working for someone along those lines knowing the type of person he is.
• jmog

  bigkahuna wrote:
  
  My thoughts between your business and his practice is that you can choose who you want to do business with. However, as a civil servant, a doctor isn't supposed to; well that's how we perceive it. For instance, I am willing to bet that I would get in a lot of trouble if I found out a student was doing something and thus chose not to teach him anymore.

  Whoa Whoa Whoa, stop the socialist train here, since when are doctors "civil servants"? Civil servants are people who work for the federal government.
  
  Last I checked, doctors are still either self employed, employed by a hospital (usually for profit hospital), or employed by another doctor. AKA they are not working for the government.
• Con_Alma

  That had to be a freudian slip. There's no way he truly meant to say that doctors are civil servants.
• goosebumps

  

  Theres nothing wrong with this legally or even morally if using the right justification. Perhaps he is a follower of Kant.
  
  Shows poor taste, but as long as he's not officially asking someone if they support Obama then refusing to treat them or provide preventitive care then the Libtards on this board need to find something else to bitch about.
• Footwedge

  If the doctor is self employed, he has the right to chase away 52% of his potential patients. If he works for the hospital per se, then he will probably be self employed in the very near future.
• bigkahuna

  Con_Alma wrote: That had to be a freudian slip. There's no way he truly meant to say that doctors are civil servants.

  The reason I said civil servant is because that's what they call the discount they get. My wife is a nurse and she gets a civil servant discount on things like her cell phone, our home insurance, car insurance.... I just put 2 and 2 together. I didn't mean that they were government employees or anything.
  
  Con,
  
  Regarding your earlier post, my apologizes for assuming what you were saying.
  
  I understand what you mean now though. As with the doctor in question, and your friend it is out in the open to what they believe. Kind of like you know what you're getting into, so enter if you dare. Kind of like with an application. If you lie on the application, we are going to kick you out of here.
• NNN

  

  How much different is this than going to a restaurant and seeing a sign on the door that says "Cash only - we do not accept credit cards"? If it's a good restaurant, I either pay on their terms or go elsewhere.
  
  Heck, there's plenty in the medical field who refuse certain insurance companies as well as Medicare. Will the pitchfork mob form up and demand that their licenses be revoked as well?
• peoplerfunny

  Good for this doctor. What he did is part of the 1st ammendment...Free Speech. Finally a doctor is taking a stand against Obamacare. Hopefully there's more to come. 33 more months of Obama...Lord help us.
• ptown_trojans_1

  

  Not a great source, but what I saw from the Daily Show last night means this guy doesn't really know what he is talking about. Again, could be the source, but he sounded like a party hack just spewing talking points he found on the internet.
• bigkahuna

  I would consider the Daily Show a decent source. It's funny, but it comes from a true place.
• cbus4life

  I'm sure the dude is a great doctor, but from the interviews i've seen and the like, he really doesn't know what he's talking about aside from what he has been told in secret meetings with QuakerOats.
• Glory Days

  

  ptown_trojans_1 wrote: Not a great source, but what I saw from the Daily Show last night means this guy doesn't really know what he is talking about. Again, could be the source, but he sounded like a party hack just spewing talking points he found on the internet.

  haha i saw that too. something about how he got all of his information about the health care bill from the internet....probably Ohiochatter.com.
• QuakerOats

  cbus4life wrote: I'm sure the dude is a great doctor, but from the interviews i've seen and the like, he really doesn't know what he's talking about aside from what he has been told in secret meetings with QuakerOats.

  well played.
• Writerbuckeye

  

  So if he got all his information about the health care bill from the Internet and formed his own opinions thereafter -- that's somehow a bad thing?
  
  I thought it was our civic duty to research this stuff and then figure out where we stood on it.
  
  Perhaps I was misinformed and am supposed to just accept what I hear in the MSM (Obama great, Obama good, knows what's best for the neighborhood) and let it be.
• ptown_trojans_1

  

  Writerbuckeye wrote: So if he got all his information about the health care bill from the Internet and formed his own opinions thereafter -- that's somehow a bad thing?
  
  I thought it was our civic duty to research this stuff and then figure out where we stood on it.
  
  Perhaps I was misinformed and am supposed to just accept what I hear in the MSM (Obama great, Obama good, knows what's best for the neighborhood) and let it be.

  Would you like your doctor to get all his information from the internet? Or, how about a judge obtaining his interpretation of the law from the internet?
  
  The problem was he didn't just read stuff on the internet. The problem was he could not cite anything, and that is a big credibility problem.
  
  Larger issue, but the internet has allowed people to spew anything without proper citations or analytical, scholarly work. Now, sure there are some good blogs, I write for one, but if you are going present your expert opinion on a matter, at the very least cite where you are obtaining your information. He is a doctor and should have learned that in med school.
• Writerbuckeye

  

  We're talking about a political bill here -- not his medical training.
  
  I don't have ANY problem with him getting all his information about this bill on-line, including reading the bill itself. Whether he's able to express his views well or not is another issue. Hell, Obama couldn't even answer one simple question when he was asked on the subject.