Lame Duck Attempts Again to Create a Theocracy for Health Care

Imagine, if you will, a JW emergency room tech, or a Christian Science EMT

I would dearly love to see one of the Junta's operatives in a car accident, trying to deal with a Jehovah's Witness emergency room tech who refuses to authorize a blood transfusion because it would be against his religion.

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même merde.

---

by: TechBear @ Tue Nov 18, 2008 at 11:11:16 AM CST

How is this any different from a hospital refusing to serve people with dark skin?

Because "not mixing the races" was once seen as a MORAL issue, a PERSONAL JUDGEMENT issue. And people died because they were refused admittance to a white hospital.

What about a doctor who decides that a patient only deserves a basic treatment, or even a placebo, because of an condition that they "brought on themselves?" in the doctor's opinion. Or because they're not that wealthy so God must not favor them, so if they can't afford medications down the road, it's not worth trying them now...
Or the greater "moral good" is that a person die rather than rack up bills for a cash-strapped hospital?

Terrifying. If this were to pass and actually go into action, I'd expect the hospitals near me to issue a statement saying that either they don't accept federal funds, or that they don't hire staff who would go along w/ the federal guidelines.

If we're talking about federal funds for individual practices, doesn't that mean Medicare and Medicaid? Of course, that affects the poor and those w/ fixed incomes. How come none of Bush's policies ever negatively affect his own family? (Rhetorical, I know).

---

by: lyonside @ Tue Nov 18, 2008 at 11:25:41 AM CST

64 more days, Bush isn't done yet,

  This Jack Ass is going to fuck more shit up in the last days for political reasons.  He has put politics before the country.  He is a criminal and will walk away scott free.

If I make sense? it was quite by accident.

---

by: HappyCat @ Tue Nov 18, 2008 at 11:28:19 AM CST

Not only that,

He'll walk away with a fat pension, Secret Service protection, and health insurance, taxpayer-funded, for the rest of his miserable life.  

---

by: Jan01 @ Tue Nov 18, 2008 at 12:45:48 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Actually not SS protection

I believe that GWB is the first president to be subject to the rule that they don't get SS protection for life....??

---

by: Julien Sharp @ Tue Nov 18, 2008 at 13:15:04 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Oh the irony!

He's the most hated US president in history and he doesn't get SS protection? I'm guessing the SS figure he'd be way too much hard work to guard, hahaha.

____________________________________
Cuius testiculos habes, habeas cardia et cerebellum.

---

by: tavdy79 @ Tue Nov 18, 2008 at 15:08:24 PM CST

[ Parent ]

I'm not sure that the 10 year limit is a good idea.

I'm surprised that Secret Service protection was limited to only 10 years after leaving office, but its true:

The FY1995 Treasury, Postal Service, and General Government Appropriations Act (108 Stat. 2413) amended 18 U.S.C. 3056 to limit protection to 10 years for former Presidents who begin serving after January 1, 1997, and for their spouses. A spouse's 10-year protection ends upon divorce, remarriage, or the former President's death.
Following the death of an acting President (see Twenty-Fifth Amendment to the Constitution), a spouse receives protection for one year. The Secretary of Homeland Security can also authorize temporary protection at any time.

http://www.senate.gov/referenc...

10 years seems awfully short since political grudges can last awfully long. But I guess the provision for temporary Secret Service protection might protect against known plots.

As for GWB being the most hated president... I dunno.  Certainly he is disliked, but the comments I have been reading on a popular Catholic forum site make me worry for Obama's life.

If you want allies, you have to be an ally.

---

by: dale @ Tue Nov 18, 2008 at 17:52:16 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Can someone send him a boat load of pretzels?

  Let him over indulge on them, tell Laura George wanted to be left alone or something. Force feed him the pretzels!

If I make sense? it was quite by accident.

---

by: HappyCat @ Tue Nov 18, 2008 at 20:17:28 PM CST

[ Parent ]

10 year SS protection probably refers to bodyguards and not

anti-assassination intelligence. I would imagine that the intelligence would go on indefinitely, because it would be bundled in with other intelligence about high-profile targets of interest to Muslim extremists looking to make world headlines.

---

by: NancyP @ Wed Nov 19, 2008 at 10:50:25 AM CST

[ Parent ]

This is about abortion, not gays

This proposal by Bush has nothing to do with gays.  It has to do with abortion.  There are a lot of people that think abortion is the murder of a human being.  

---

by: tonyome @ Tue Nov 18, 2008 at 12:02:15 PM CST

So?

What if someone's "moral belief" is that a gay person isn't deserving of medical care? What if someone's religion says that a gay woman or a transman doesn't deserve treatment for uterine cancer since they're not using the organ in a reproductive capacity?

What if a hospital won't hire someone who comes in to an interview with a cross around his/her neck for fear that that person won't do their job?

There's a lot of potential fallout from this decision.

---

by: the.sue @ Tue Nov 18, 2008 at 12:06:33 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Oh please...

...think of the big picture and where this could lead. It has ramifications way beyond abortion.  

---

by: Julien Sharp @ Tue Nov 18, 2008 at 12:44:55 PM CST

[ Parent ]

The problem is that they're using a broad brush to avoid the very issue you're talking about...

And as usual, it will have unintended (or rather, supposedly unintended) consequences. It's a slippery slope.

It could easily be extended to any therapies derived from stem cell research (no matter the origin of those cell lines, since it would be difficult if not impossible to tell).

It also sounds scarily like the whole "pharmacists denying birth control pills (while still filling Viagra bottles)" law.

---

by: lyonside @ Tue Nov 18, 2008 at 12:48:03 PM CST

[ Parent ]

And the federal law

saying schools must be made available to the public was passed so religious groups could meet on school grounds. That didn't stop people from using that law to get gay and lesbian clubs going in schools. Directly counter to the intention of the people who passed it, but it worked.

Unintended consequences are a real bitch. The unintended consequences from something like this could be truly horrific.

Cause any fool knows, a dog needs a home; a shelter from pigs on the wing

---

by: QueerInSoCal @ Tue Nov 18, 2008 at 12:49:43 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Are you kidding?

 

There are a lot of people that think abortion is the murder of a human being.

 

Fine if that's what they think, they should be trying to get state murder laws amended to include abortion.  That way women and their doctors would be tried for murder, which according the the "pro-life" crowd is the real crime here.  But that never seems to occur to them, does it?  Maybe that's because the minute you frame the discussion that way, it becomes immediately apparent how absurd their position is.

Cynic, n.  A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be.  
-Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary

---

by: QScribe @ Tue Nov 18, 2008 at 13:24:13 PM CST

[ Parent ]

already lesbians/single women can be denied access to fertility treatments

There are already many Catholic/Baptist and other "religious" medical institutions that refuse to provide insemination or other fertility services to queer (or just single) women. So, this is already an issue that DIRECTLY impacts the queer community. As well, when the AIDS epidemic first began in the 1980s, there were many medical providers who outright refused to treat AIDS patients--a lot of them said it was for fear of contracting the disease, but some were also open about stating that folks with AIDS "brought it on themselves" through filthy behavior and didn't deserve treatment. So we have seen this before...

This is NOT just about abortion. And even if it were, there are MANY parallels between protecting a woman's right to make her own reproductive and parenting choices, and protecting all people's rights to partner sexually (and otherwise) with the adult(s) of their choosing.

It's about medical professionals being allowed to discriminate based on personal beliefs, which supplants the Hippocratic Oath to "do no harm". And if folks are so concerned about murder, perhaps they should be focusing on ending the wars in Iraq & Afghanistan, abolishing the death penalty, and oh, that pesky problem of hate crimes against the GLBT community.  

---

by: elizabethws @ Tue Nov 18, 2008 at 13:37:21 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Are sterilizations ALSO murder?

I have read several quotes on this rule from those at Catholic hospitals who make the point that they morally object to providing sterilizations -- vasectomies and tubal ligations -- because of their religious beliefs.  Are those also 'murder'?  Or are they instead a reasonable choice not to have children you can't afford or don't want?  One even said there should be protection for the provider who refuses to REFER people so that they can find another provider.  This bill gives them the right to PREVENT people from getting necessary, wanted medical care by keeping where it might be available secret from the people they are supposed to be 'helping'.

If the Catholics really, truly have moral objections to people who receive medical care making choices that aren't congruent with a religion of which they aren't necessarily even a member, perhaps the Church needs to get out of the hospital business altogether?  That would seem to put the inconvenience and financial loss of upholding their morality back on their own shoulders instead of binding their burden to the backs of their unwilling neighbors.

Crow

---

by: crow @ Tue Nov 18, 2008 at 20:48:30 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Sterlizations are <i>not</i> murder, according to Catholic teaching

The Catholic Church is opposed to sterilizations because they separate sex from procreation.  Its the same reason the Catholic Church is opposed to temporary contraception - it makes sex "not open to life".

As for Catholic orders getting out of the hospital business, some conservative Catholics support you.  I'm not sure its practical, but I haven't studied the matter.

If you want allies, you have to be an ally.

---

by: dale @ Tue Nov 18, 2008 at 21:07:46 PM CST

[ Parent ]

I understand the Catholic position

They have an absolute right to believe that separating sex from procreation is immoral.  They do NOT, however, have the right as professional medical personnel to keep secret from non-Catholics, or for that matter Catholics who disagree with them on the matter, where those services can be obtained from a willing provider.

There are women whose health puts them at risk of death if they become pregnant -- sterlization is the only 100% surefire way for those women to save their own lives.  There are women who discover their pregnancy is ectopic and immediate abortion is absolutely necessary.  Refusing to give women in those positions referrals may help the refusnik feel 'moral' but to use their own rethoric, it should also brand them 'murderer' if that woman dies during a pregnancy.

Crow

---

by: crow @ Tue Nov 18, 2008 at 21:53:12 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Medical ethics require the M.D. to mention all available options

including sterilization and abortion, and to refer if the M.D. refuses to treat.

There is NO NEED for Bush to pass a law protecting M.D.s and R.N.s, not working specifically in reproductive health and not facing an emergent situation, who don't want to do surgical or  Mifepristone (RU-486) elective abortions. However, those same individuals, if they are the ones on call and a woman with a ruptured or about to rupture tubal pregnancy shows up in the ER, must either abort the pregnancy with methotrexate, incise the tube and remove the gestation (repairing tube afterwards), or remove the whole tube or tube/ovary, as clinically appropriate. In the USA, lifesaving (that is to say, ALL) treatment of tubal pregnancy is done at all Catholic hospitals as it is generally accepted by the US Church that this isn't elective abortion. There's no protection in law when an emergency room refuses to provide treatment for emergent patients presenting to that ER - no Catholic exception - and no protection for the Catholic physician who refuses to treat a tubal pregnancy. Bishops elsewhere, notably in Nicaragua, which bans treatment of tubal pregnancy, are able to be more hard-line. Bishops here would have to force hospitals to close ERs (and likely precipitate hospital closure by state withdrawal of its  certificate for beds) and would face open defiance by Catholic Ob-gyns and ER docs, who know they can't practice what is defined as gross negligence without losing their license and getting sued for gigantic sums.

---

by: NancyP @ Wed Nov 19, 2008 at 11:06:23 AM CST

[ Parent ]

Wrong! It is about contraception and about gays as well as surgical abortion

Pharmacists are refusing to fill oral contraceptive formulations, either because the patient doesn't have a wedding ring, or because the pharmacists claim that OCPs cause abortion. Which would be a bit of a trick, since the primary mode of action of OCPs is to prevent ovulation. If the patient is not 100% consistent with taking the OCPs as directed, or has a drug or food interaction that the doctor or pharmacist doesn't warn her about, there is a small chance that ovulation might occur, in which case the egg, if fertilized, would encounter an endometrium (uterine lining) unsuited for implantation, a secondary effect of the hormones in OCPs. So, when the anti-woman pharmacist prevents her from getting a timely refill, it is true that HE might be assisting failure to implant. The medical definition of abortion does not start at conception, as such a large percentage of conceptuses fail to implant. The medical definition of abortion is embryonic or fetal death after implantation is complete. Notice that the definition doesn't specify means of abortion - it could be due to maternal cigarette smoking, uncontrolled diabetes, in utero infections, and other entities, aside from induced abortion.

And as for the gays, lesbians, and especially the transgendered people, there are numerous cases of refusal to treat, most common in trangendered patients (hormones, in regards to pharmacists), but also seen for gay and lesbian patients. A recent (2007-2008) court case ruled for the lesbian plaintiff who was refused artificial insemination in a state (CA) that allows unmarried women to get fertility services.

---

by: NancyP @ Wed Nov 19, 2008 at 10:45:22 AM CST

[ Parent ]

No fundie health system!

Standards of care are standards of care
Birth control, blood transfusions, treatment for STD's are reasonable expectations from a healthcare provider.

This will lead to the kind of discrimination that killed Dr Charles Drew, inventor of modern blood storage. He bled to death after an accident, the Hospital had moral objections to treating him: he was black.

Another reason for us to be in the streets, objecting to the right's grasping at control over our very existence.

I tell you Chica that no greater abomination exists than women denying their spirit of sisterhood and instead becoming the oppressor. -Rebeca, Universidad Complutense de Madrid

---

by: MauraHennessey @ Tue Nov 18, 2008 at 12:12:13 PM CST

urban legend, but your point remains

http://www.straightdope.com/co...

---

by: boltgirl @ Tue Nov 18, 2008 at 13:56:39 PM CST

[ Parent ]

List

Similar to the list of Prop 8 donors, is there a list out there of pro-choice and pro-life doctors?  If not, that could be an effective guide for women (but will have to be constantly updated, I'm sure).  It might also help to list those pharmacists in every state who's been known to refuse selling the morning-after pill or any other female scripts.  

Something like that would definitely be a time-saver (if not a life-saver in some cases).

---

by: bluegrassfool @ Tue Nov 18, 2008 at 14:05:44 PM CST

No list currently

but that's a good idea for Planned Parenthood or for a private website (with legal disclaimer as to the unknown accuracy).

"Pro-life" doctors don't want to be counted as "pro-life" per se because they want the business from those women who want to have kids at the moment and don't think to ask if the doc does birth control or sterilization that they might want at some future time.

---

by: NancyP @ Wed Nov 19, 2008 at 11:11:00 AM CST

[ Parent ]

Hey...'please can we separate church from healthcare?'

We're still trying to separate Church from CIVIL Marriage...and people don't get it.

It's the Hammer of JUSTICE,
It's the Bell of FREEDOM,
It's the Song about LOVE between,
my Brothers and my Sisters
...All over this Land.

---

by: Orion45 @ Tue Nov 18, 2008 at 23:24:55 PM CST