Physicians Challenge Florida Goverment

Attached an article highlighting an issue which is going to be resolved in court. Unfortunately, Governor Scott signed HB 155 into law which will bar physicians from asking patients about gun ownership. Florida is the only state in the nation to have such a law which was pushed by the NRA.
Sadly, the Florida Medical Association does not oppose the new law exposing its members to charges of harassment if they "dare" to provide their patients information about gun safety. Any alleged violation of the new law will expose physicians to disciplinary action and even license revocation!
Now its time to stop government intrusion into the patient-physician relationship.
I encourage doctors to pay attention to this issue and to take action.
Yours
Bernd












PalmBeachPost.com



By DARA KAM

Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Updated: 10:58 p.m. Thursday, June 2, 2011

Posted: 8:19 p.m. Thursday, June 2, 2011

Three groups of doctors are suing Gov. Rick Scott over a bill he signed into law Thursday restricting health care workers from asking patients questions about guns.

Lawyers representing members of Florida chapters of the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Family Physicians and the American College of Physicians asked Scott last week to veto the measure (HB 155) and threatened to sue if he signed it into law.

The Florida Medical Association does not oppose the new law.

Bruce Manheim of the Washington-based Ropes & Gray law firm said Thursday he would file the lawsuit immediately after Scott signed the law.

Doctors say the law infringes on their First Amendment constitutional right to free speech by barring them from asking about gun ownership, something they say is necessary to do their jobs.

It will "have a muzzling effect on doctors" who routinely ask parents and teenagers about swimming pools, dangerous drugs, bicycle helmets and car seats as well as about firearms in the home, pediatrician Tommy Schechtman said.

Under the law, doctors and other health care professionals will face sanctions including fines and losing their licenses if they ask patients about guns in the home without a direct belief that the inquiry is relevant to the patient's safety or health.

"It is my job. It is my responsibility. I have a moral obligation, an ethical obligation to be doing this," said Schechtman, who has offices in Palm Beach Gardens, Jupiter and Boca Raton.

But Scott spokesman Lane Wright said the first-term governor is confident he is on solid legal ground by signing the bill.

"Others would argue it would be an infringement of a citizen's rights who owns a gun to have a doctor ask those questions," Wright said. "Why should any law abiding citizen have to report to a doctor that they have a gun?"

Florida is the only state in the nation to have such a law, according to National Rifle Association lobbyist Marion Hammer, a former president of the gun rights organization.

Hammer said some health care professionals are pushing anti-gun messages to their patients under the guise of home safety questionnaires. The measure was prompted by complaints from gun owners following an incident this summer in which an Ocala-area physician told a couple to find another pediatrician after they refused to answer questions about whether they owned a gun and how it was stored.

The NRA and other supporters don't object if doctors routinely distribute safety brochures to all patients that give instructions on swimming pools, firearms or other safety-related issues, Hammer said.

"But doctors should not be spending the time that patients are paying for to talk to them about matters they're not there for. They come to doctors for medical care and medical treatment, not to have politics in the examining room and not to be lectured on firearms. They are medical doctors; they are not firearms instructors," she said.

But Mannheim said the new law is so vague about when questions are permissible that it would have a chilling effect on health care practitioners fearful of having to defend themselves before the Board of Medicine.

"Questions about firearm safety, as innocuous as they may be to the ordinary person, could be construed by someone as constituting harassment by a physician and simply on the basis of that judgment a physician could be taken through these disciplinary proceedings," he said. "It immediately chills the speech of our clients and their members and accordingly we intend to move very quickly with a lawsuit."

Schechtman said the new law won't stop him, however. More than 1,500 children die each year from household gun-related injuries, he said.

"Some of us won't shut up. Sometimes you have to decide to do the right thing which is what I will do. It's not going to stop me from doing anything," he said.

But other physicians may feel it's not worth the risk.

"It will have its intended effect. That's the thing that's scary to me. And that's why I think we have to take this off the books. I think it's sending a wrong message that people shouldn't have to worry about guns," Schechtman said.