Comments on: Bush Official: Doctor’s Right to Withold Information Greater Than Patient’s Right to Receive It

By: Cara

Cara — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 14:52:27 +0000

Hey Heather, I agree. If I use “pro-life,” it’s in quotation marks for effect (i.e. “the policies of the ‘pro-life’ administration are killing women all over the world). The only time the term appears in the post is in quoted text!

By: Heather

Heather — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 14:30:00 +0000

Thanks for your article. Glad to see it on Alternet health and wellness post. BUT PLEASE don’t use “pro-life” for anti-choice crusaders. WE who value a woman’s right to make decisions about her body and her reproductive life are pro-life. And we care about babies (and their mothers) after they’re born, which the right wing apparently does not.

By: Thealogian

Thealogian — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 19:50:44 +0000

Sara, you’re just arguing for argument sake at this point.

Now, to take the voting analogy a bit further– you have the right to vote (if you’re not a felon), but YOU CAN’T VOTE JUST ANYWHERE ANYTIME. You have to vote at your polling station which is assigned to you on the basis of your address. So, with the right to healthcare, you may not be able to demand that Dr. 90210 sews up your cut finger to prevent scarring, but you will get that medical service–the stitches–when you need them in a just medical system.

By: lauredhel

lauredhel — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 16:34:37 +0000

I’m not getting your definition of “right” either, Sara. Perhaps you could define it more clearly to help progress the conversation.

I think people have a right not to starve, but I don’t think they have a right to demand that a certain waiter at a certain restaurant bring them free caviar and a gin & tonic right NOW dammit. I think universal public education is a right, but I don’t think that you have the right to march up to a random professor and demand she sit down with you today and give you a tutorial on the topic of your choice.

By: konstanze

konstanze — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 21:52:52 +0000

Sixty-three percent? Sixty-three percent?
I can’t get past that. Every day I get more and more amazed at how f’ed up our country is.

By: Cara

Cara — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 17:56:41 +0000

Sara, you seem to be fundamentally confused about the difference between “a right” and “a government succeeding in upholding a right.” The U.S. seems to be failing miserably in upholding the right to not endure cruel and unusual punishment. That doesn’t mean that people have any less of a human right to not be tortured. Heath care is a right. That various governments all over the world fair to treat it as a right doesn’t diminish the fact that it is.

By: sara

sara — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 16:49:59 +0000

Can you provide anything indicating that someone in Canada or England has no recourse if they can’t find a doctor?

Sure they have “recourse” if by recourse you mean access to an emergency room. ER access is guaranteed. But access to a primary care doctor is NOT.

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1472980

More than 4 million Canadians cannot find family physicians to care for them1

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1949098

A Decima Research poll commissioned by the College of Family Physicians of Canada in September 20061 revealed that 17% of Canadians do not have family physicians—about 5 million Canadians have no family doctor. Of these 5 million, nearly 2 million have looked for a doctor but cannot find one.

In Canada, UK, France, Germany, and everywhere else access to primary care is not guaranteed. Of course I think their systems are a lot better than the US, but nevertheless there is no “right” to primary care access in any country.

There is no legal recourse for primary care doctors who refuse to take on new patients. They are untouchable.

The vast majority of people just keep shopping until they find a doc who is taking new patients, but there’s nothing in the law FORCING doctors to do so.

By: Astraea

Astraea — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 10:37:13 +0000

Individual doctors can technically refuse to take you on as a patient, but as others have observed, that’s not really how the system works and patients are guaranteed some kind of access to health care in one form or other.

It functions as an accepted right.

Can you provide anything indicating that someone in Canada or England has no recourse if they can’t find a doctor?

I think this whole disagreement stems from a difference in philosophy. The argument you make seems to come from a legal positivist view. The problem is you assume that this is not just one philosophy of rights, but the one that is largely accepted. That’s not really the case.

By: sara

sara — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 00:03:13 +0000

Your comparison to voting doesn’t quite work because while they have to let you vote, they can put you in a line. Which is essentially the same as a physician asking a patient to wait until there is time available, or asking the patient to go to another physician.

Putting someone in a line is NOT the same thing as refusing service outright. I’m not talking about one doctor’s office, I’m talking about something that applies to all of them collectively.

Suppose there are 50 doctors offices, all of them with openings. Suppose that you try to go to all of them, and they refuse to take you on as a patient. Thats totally 100% legal for them to do. On the other hand, if a voting center tells you outright that you cant vote there, thats illegal and its a critical difference.

By: sara

sara — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 23:57:21 +0000

you also have to figure in how easily one could find a doctor in her area. in my home town, there was only one OB/GYN office. i would have had to travel thirty minutes to the next town to see another one. and that was if i had a car of my own to make the trip. public transportation isn’t going to take you there.

Pap smears are not solely part of the ob/gyn domain. Internal medicine docs do them, family practitioners do them, NPs do them, PAs do them, RNs do them.

Dont get me wrong, I think ob/gyns are the best service provider for paps, but its not exactly a hot commodity.