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It's a hell of a thing when people put politics before everything else. What next, stores wanting to see your voter registration card before they do business with you? Tow truck drivers refusing to help if they don't like your bumper sticker? Anyone who doesn't see a problem with this is an raging idiot.
I've seen it all now. I guess he's protected by the first amendment freedom of speech. I wonder how the medical board will handle this situation. His wife is a lawyer so I assume he consulted with her before posting this sign.
He's a urologist. I'm pretty sure he doesn't get any walk-in patients looking for check ups and that they are either repeat patients with follow up visits or they have to come to him via referral from a primary care physician. Over the last year, I have quizzed my doctors on their position on Obamacare and the National Healthcare Database. Haven't you?
The doctor does have the right to free speech just like anyone else. He wouldn't be the first doctor to antagonize patients. I see it done all the time (and it doesn't have anything to do with insurance). It's his practice, his business. If hanging such a sign makes him feel better, so be it. It's his prerogative.
Having said that, I must point out that this doctor isn't very smart. Why do I say this, some of you may ask? Well, for starters, he is a urologist. That means that the bulk of his patients are going to have BPH (benign prostate hypertrophy), or other conditions related to BPH. Since BPH afflicts roughly 50 percent of men over the age of 60, I'd dare say that the bulk of his patients are on Medicare. That's why he is so ticked off. Make no mistake, Medicare patients are his meat and potatoes.
He can pick and choose what kind of insurance he accepts, but I just don't see how he's going to make up the volume of patients he can potentially lose. Sure, there are patients with good private insurance who need a nephrectomy or a vasectomy, but they are not that many.
I guess he can always set up a "practice" next to a tattoo parlor and offer penile implants and piercings. The business can be straight cash: no insurance of any kind, no checks, no debit/credit cards.
As for myself, I would not take a loved one to see this doctor. I prefer doctors who are focused on medical care and not on politics. This doctor is really angry and anger can cause a person to make mistakes.
He's not the only game in town. The patients he has antagonized will take their business elsewhere. I'm sure there are plenty of other urologists in the area laughing their butts off right now.
Having had 3 kidney stones, I can say the urologist could be Nancy Pelosi's identical twin sister, the CEO of MoveOn.org and flies the UN flag outside of her office and I wouldn't care if I was in agony.
I understand what you are saying but the fact is he cannot question his patients directly about their voting habits and then deny treatment. Therefore it is still left up to the patient to either sit there, disgusted, but accept treatment anyway regardless of how they vote, or to find another urologist.
Actually you don't understand what I'm saying. The fact is he can ask patients about their voting habits and legally not accept them into his practice based on the medicolegal premise of Autonomy. If they are an established patient, the physician would have to agree to treat them for 30-60 days until they find a new physician otherwise he could be charged with abandonment. I understand why you are confused. Employers cannot legally discriminate against hiring people based on categories like race, religion, gender, age, nationality/country of origin etc. The physician is not an employer in this case. He is a provider and under the law he or she can refuse to accept patients under any circumstances. People make this assumption all the time and assume a physician is obligated to accept patients and cannot deny them service based on these principles. It's not the case. It seems harsh but that is the law. The exceptions to this apply to an emergent case or an emergency setting. For example, an emergency room physician cannot deny care to a patient based on their race. OR if an Obama supporter walked into the physician's office and was actively bleeding and in a critical condition and the physician said "Sorry I'm not treating her, she is an Obama supporter" and the patient dies on the spot or is severely injured as a result of his lack of care, he or she could lose their license. However, this particular case pertains to accepting new patients into a practice or discharging current patients from a practice who are not in a critical condition so this is a different situation and the physician is allowed to refuse to treat them based on poltical grounds.
What Pommy and I are discussing is the issue of Abandonment. A physician is not allowed to abandon patients already under his or her care. So for example, if an established patient was an Obama supporter and saw this sign and understood it to mean that he was telling them to leave his practice if they were an Obama supporter, this physician could have his license suspended based on Abandonment. It would be up to a state medical board to determine how that sign would be interpreted. I've served on a state medical board and I can assure you the sign would be interpreted in a way to benefit the patient. Physicians comprise of a state medical board so they wouldn't view this physician favorably knowing he is refusing to see patients based on political aspirations. They would likely reprimand him and have him remove the sign or suspend his license based on Abandonment. It doesn't matter if the patient communicates his or her political leaning to the physician. It only matters how the patient interprets the sign. If an established patient and an Obama supporter appears for her appointment, sees the sign and then leaves, the physician would be held responsible for abandonment and not being more clear.
The physician could get away with it if his sign said: "If you are a supporter of Obama, I will not accept you into my practice and you will need to find another physician. If you are an established patient and an Obama supporter, I will discharge you but agree to see you for 60 days until you find a new physician" His sign would have to be explicitly written that way for him to get away with it.
Last edited by azriverfan.; 04-03-2010 at 06:58 AM..
It's a hell of a thing when people put politics before everything else. What next, stores wanting to see your voter registration card before they do business with you? Tow truck drivers refusing to help if they don't like your bumper sticker? Anyone who doesn't see a problem with this is an raging idiot.
On my special board, in my restaurant after "the Vote", I put:
" 219-212 in Favor
of raising my menu prices"
I had to explain it to more people than who actually got it.
If this doctor's story had not made the news, chances are most of his patients wouldn't have figured it out
It's still better than the City of Berkeley, California trying to ban the US Marine recruiting station from their city. It's one thing if a private citizen or private business owner makes such a statement. People who don't agree, and some who do agree, will simply call him a nut and let it go at that. But for an elected city council and mayor to actively oppose and insult the military the way Berkeley did is horrible. What I found eye opening was the blatantly biased attack interview of Anderson Cooper. Saw the video of his interview with this doctor and he was in full pitbull attack mode as if to say, "how dare you insult and attack the president I fully support". Did he offer up as much of a verbal assault against the Berkeley city council and mayor of berkeley? Doubtful.
Why would any business owner turn away half their customers? That's just dumb.
Maybe they have enough patients and weeding Obama supporters.
The beauty of this is that we live in a free country for now and
have the right to refuse serve to anyone.
It's a hell of a thing when people put politics before everything else. What next, stores wanting to see your voter registration card before they do business with you? Tow truck drivers refusing to help if they don't like your bumper sticker? Anyone who doesn't see a problem with this is an raging idiot.
On the flip side, if the doctor posted his political views in the waiting room then patients would have the right to boycott the doc. That would be OK because it wouldn't be so unprofessional or risky to the health of others.
I used to see a cardiologist who openly shared his Zionist Orthodox Jewish views with me during a visit. He carried on about his literal view that Jews are superior and are God's chosen people and he said he was way to the right of Doctor Laura. I never went to see him again. No way am I going to support such bigoted politics and I don't want an orthodox anything in charge of the health of my ticker. I adore my reform/liberal Jewish friends but had never been exposed to the radical views of conservative/orthodox Jews. They're like a mirror image of radical Muslims. No wonder they're always at war with each other! (Sorry for the thread drift.)
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