The underlying story is about how the government is requiring all doctors to routinely ask patients: "Are you sexually active? If so, with one partner, multiple partners or same-sex partners?" They want complete records on these things, and I suppose they're hoping most people don't care about their privacy anymore.
But quite aside from that policy, what's with that picture of Obama? Is Drudge trying to make Obama look like a sexual predator? Are people accusing Drudge of racism yet? Maybe he's just trying to portray the Obama as desperately, insanely hungry for all your information. He's grasping at it with his clawing hand.
Back up a bit and look at the whole 3 columns. The other hand in view is Putin's, gently adjusting his mirrored sunglasses. We can see Obama's weird eyes — spying eyes — as he clumsily grabs for his own people's secrets, but Putin's eyes are hidden behind mirrored sunglasses, and he seems skillful and analytical as he peers into America's secrets.
Meanwhile, it's a "WOMAN'S WORLD: YELLEN SET TO CHAIR FED..." Yellen is looking more Putinesque, exhibiting a stern seriousness.
Look at the series of headlines under her. Surely subliminal messages are intended. Note: "END OF THE PUMP?" That goes to a story about the Fed's quantitative easing policy, but there's a sexual theme across the top of the 3 columns this morning, and with Putin intimidating us, Obama flailing and spying on us, and the dour Yellen leading us into a "Woman's World," the "end of the pump" inspires dread.
The end of sex... it's coming to get you.
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48 comments:
Does sexually active necessarily imply a partner?
Braaaaaaaaaaaains! Braaaaaaaaaaaains!
Maybe the photo just needs a halo?
I'm asked that question already when I see my doctor. Doesn't it affect how they will proceed with a physical if I say yes or no, or if I say I have multiple partners, or just one? I mean, they'll look for different things, and interpret, say, a skin lesion differently based on the answer, won't they?
I don't see a big deal here. The idea that we don't have any privacy? That boat sailed a long, long long time ago. At least I can say that my Senator -- at the time -- made the correct vote against the so-called PATRIOT act.
Just because someone asks a question, it doesn't automatically imply that you have to answer it. Some questions are none of their business. For example, the Constitution calls for a census to be an enumeration of the people. It doesn't call for the government to gather information about the number of bedrooms and bathrooms in a home much less the race of people living there. I always check the "Other" box and write in "Human" for the race. It's the only accurate answer. White is not a race, nor is any other color. We're all human.
As for the questions about my sex life, that's none of their business and they'll get no answer.
Hey everything and anything can impact your health. So why not ask about one's love life, finances and anything else Big Brothers deems necessary?
Pretty soon if you want confidential medical treatment you are going to have to see a vet or a black market doctor.
The fact remains the government is requiring this information be asked and stored in a database that can be accessed by many.
A sexual history is a routine part of a medical history. To not ask these questions would be malpractice.
Betsey McCaughey! I wondered where she'd got to. (She was the one who wrote the enormous New Republic article slamming the predecessor of the PPACA in the Clinton Administration.)
Seriously, though, mandatory questioning of patients who have come into the doctor for STDs or other medical problems related to sexual activity about their own sexual habits might make some sense, though it was not long ago that ACT-UP and the ACLU would have thrown a fit about this. It makes zero sense when the medical complaint has nothing to do with sex; and it frankly creeps me out.
Here's the deal about Drudge. Hardly anyone innocently wanders there who's a) not already right leaning and b) aware enough to grasp his subtle ways.
On the other hand most of the media, including the non news media, pumps not so subtle face in his crack, ass kissing, love unabated since 2004. It would take total immersion in Drudge for a long time for any subliminal effects to show. Its an inside joke for me.
Why would anybody consider the picture racist? I have no idea.
At the risk of going a little off topic, though I think Obama's credibility is a topic here, I wonder if anybody could explain the logic behind the meme that "If you like your plan, you can keep your plan" is not a lie? I have heard it explained before, that it was more of an "aspirational" statement than a declarative one, but whatever the reasoning is, it just falls out of my head.
I was asked those questions in the emergency room when I was admitted to hospital 15 years ago, (for what turned out to be leukemia). Who knew Obamneycare had somehow reached its tentacles so far back into the past?
Medical students are all taught to ask these questions. When I was a student there were no such questions but the AIDS crisis made it more important. Mostly they are intended to find out the risky behavior of some.
Pediatricians are being told to ask about guns in the home, which I consider less logical.
The Professor sucked into a Drudge juxt! I knew Ann couldn't resist those Obama eyes.
I would love to know the back story on the Obama picture. He must have been mugging for the camera. I can't imagine a photographer catching that one by accident.
The most amazing part of that photo is the way his collar looks like the opening of a speech bubble, which makes it appear as if Obama himself is speaking the headline.
First there were Death Panels, now Sex Panels. What next?!!111!!!1111!!!
Obama doesn't look like a sexual predator in that photo. He doesn't look like a sexual anything. He looks like a horror movie creature--with that clawing hand scrabbling for your secrets.
At least, that's the way I read it. I was shocked to imagine that someone could think this a sexual image.
"First there were Death Panels, now Sex Panels. What next?!!111!!!1111!!!"
Tax panels, obviously.
Some years ago I volunteered to donated blood. The room was fairly large, and others were also donating blood. After some routine questions, the attending nurse leaned forward and asked in a hushed tone if I had sex with a prostitute within the past six months. I whispered "no" in reply. Then in a more hushed tone she whispered "have you ever had sex with a man". I, following her lead once again, leaned forward, and in a very, very, quiet whisper replied "hell no".
Not that there would have been anything wrong with it had I replied "yes".
It's important that we not confuse issues. If doctors have been asking these questions for years, presumably for what they regard as legitimate medical reasons, that's one thing. But the news story that Drudge links to says the federal government will REQUIRE that doctors ask these questions. That's different. And WHY are these questions required? For medical reasons? I don't think so, if doctors already ask these questions when they're medically relevant. To get statistical information about American sex practices? The story doesn't say.
Perhaps to learn stuff about individuals that can be used against them if they join a Tea Party or contribute to ALEC? That's paranoid isn't it? Obama was only joking when he said we'll audit our opponents. Wasn't he?
I'd say she's more Gorbachevesque than Putinesque, albeit with more hair and no wine stain birthmark.
I pretty much stopped donating blood, about 10 years ago, because of having to answer questions like this. I understand the reasons for them, I just resent being asked. I think a number of people will not go to the doctor because of questions like this.
Questions!
How dare a medical professional ask a question...the horror...the horror.
Only slightly on-topic. Drudge is already showing a "Copyright 2014" tag on his browser window. Time flies.
Every time I tell answer a doctor's question by indicating that I am celibate, they call me a lying whore (in not so many words).
Keep your boob-grabbin' hand shtrong!
How dare a medical professional ask a question...the horror...the horror.
Hoe dare a medical professional report my personal information and private behavior to the feds,
How dare a medical professional ask a question...the horror...the horror.
How dare the feds require my doctor waste his/her time and mine getting answers to questions irrelevant to my treatment.
How dare a medical professional ask a question...the horror...the horror.
How dare the government, specifically the feds, coerce my doc an me into doing their bidding (vs our own) by injection themselves into our request / service / payment relationship.
How dare a medical professional ask a question...the horror...the horror.
How dare the feds require the collection, collation & retention of info on me outside the hands of me or my doctor, as a condition of treatment.
The loss of privacy is not because the doctor is asking about his patient's sex life. The loss of privacy and the total loss of the patient's control of his personal medical records occurs because the answers/data are entered via computer into the government's data bank.
Whoever has access to that data has access to too much of the patient's personal information--and there will be unauthorized access.
How dare a medical professional ask a question...the horror...the horror.
How dare the feds demand, as a condition of my treatment, that I place in their leaky, inept hands personal info I'd rather have kept personal.
How dare a medical professional ask a question...the horror...the horror.
The point, in case it wasn't crystal clear, is that under this arrangement the doctor is the fed's agent, not mine, and the goal some info-gathering policy objective not my health. Yet, I bear the health outcome of the interaction, and the costs, that is if they'll let me.
The horror, indeed.
Austin,
Some of us are barred from donating blood because we've lived in the UK for more than three months. That'd be me, and my husband, who haven't come down with Creutzfeldt-Jakob yet, after each living briefly in the UK in the 80s, but, hey, you never know.
Frankly, I think the questions related to blood transfusions are appropriate, because the risk is to the donee, not to you. Questions about your sexual activity when you are the patient and the complaint has nothing obvious to do with sexuality ... why would it be mandatory for doctors to ask about this? It's creepy and silly simultaneously.
machine,
How dare a medical professional ask a question...the horror...the horror.
I think the "horror" is more at the idea that the Federal government can mandate that the questions be asked. I'm not sure that's actually true, but if it is, it's unnerving. I don't want every doctor's appointment to include an overview of my sexual history. I don't know why that would be necessary or helpful except in the case of an STD.
Speaking of "subliminality" & "Putin" tags and staging pictures:
THE MEDIA PROTECT OBAMA WHERE IT COUNTS
Shows different cover treatments for TIME Magazine: Europe/Africa/Middle East; Asia; South Pacific, and United States editions.
machine said...
Questions!
How dare a medical professional ask a question...the horror...the horror.
If the questions are relevant to the medical condition, ask away. If not, then don't. For example, someone with a rash on his genitals should answer those questions. However, someone with a sprained ankle doesn't need to answer questions about his sex life or the number of guns he owns. Those questions are irrelevant for the condition being treated.
Now that Summers is out of the running and Yellin is the nominee the market rose sharply today on the "good" news that pump priming is here to stay. Who knew Obama was the president from Goldman Sachs? He sure is the president of choice for Wall Street.
Doesn't everyone feel warm and fuzzy that your doctor is no required to ask and required to report on your sex life?
because Murdoch said so...lessons ignored.
Carry on.
These questions are required for big data reasons. They want to know the consequences of frisky behavior, I mean risque, I mean risky yeah risky. And the want it for the whole population so they can project consequences and costs. THEN they will start in on requiring behavior change and charging for treatment for those who don't change their behavior or don't answer the questions. Because they will have statistics showing how frisky behavior affects interstate commerce and so the Feds can "tax" it by raising insurance premiums. This sounds far fetched but this use of big data is why the Feds want the kind of data base they are talking about. It isn't a medical database except insofar as "we are all patients now" as they like to say these days. We are all patients - think about it. Once I was an American citizen and everyone knew it. And I still am a American citizen but I don't think the American government knows it anymore. It's like they've seceded from the Union.
"Who knew Obama was the president from Goldman Sachs? He sure is the president of choice for Wall Street."
Uh...this was apparent from the beginning of his first term, when he appointed so many Wall Streeters to his administration. Another screaming tell was his Justice Department's determined refusal to bring charges of fraud and theft against so many of the major financial institutions which continue to hollow out America like parasites eating their hosts from the inside, leaving in the end only a husk. (This is not merely a figurative comparison, but it literally true with regards to what these institutions are doing to America.)
The hypocrisy of the left is on full display here. Henry Waxman a Democrat spent years working on draconian legislation which criminalized routine release of information on patients to family and friends without going through extensive legal loopholes. The law even makes it a crime for a hospital employee to confirm that someone is in the hospital. When you go to the doctor you have to sign papers which assert that you know your hippa rights.
Now that the leftists have made it a crime to release information to friends and relatives without legal documents, they have opened everyone's records to the prying eyes of thousands of government bureaucrats. The government is thus signaling that the bureaucrats are more trustworthy and care for you more than your family and friends. Because the bureaucrats are more trustworthy than your family you will not be required to sign permission for them to access your most private records. The hippa laws do not apply to government. When Obama says that the government is our family he means it.
So what happens when I refuse to answer the sexually active question or better yet what if pull an Obamafication and tell an outright lie?
Something like:"Yessir - but I must admit that at 75, I sometimes can't get it up twice a night with the 18 year old twins, Karen and Sharon. Sadly, I am losing my religion."
But that was just a dream
Try, cry, why try
That was just a dream
Just a dream
Just a dream, dream
What are hippa laws?
Machine, here is a source for hippa privacy laws:
http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/privacy/hipaa/understanding/summary/index.html
Ostensibly the hippa privacy laws were intended to protect patients privacy, but subsequent massive violations of privacy by the government has made that justification for the laws risible.
In real life the government has criminalized normal medical communication between private individuals. When you visit your doctor, you will probably be required to sign a hippa disclosure form before you can be treated.
An experience I had serves as an example of the damage done by hippa. I took my aged mother into the hospital I worked at before I retired. She needed a CT scan. I was sitting right beside her when I asked to seed the scan. The tech, who I knew well, said he couldn't allow me to see my own mother's scans because he was afraid of violating hippa. Yet, thousands of bureaucrats who do not love her and have not spent time caring for her have unfettered access to those very records.
machine,
It's HIPAA, but no one seems to be able to negotiate the single "p" and the double "a," so it's rather more often misspelled than not.
I am reminded of a scene from Ferrol Sams "When All The World Was Young," wherein the World War II prisoner of war hospital in Georgia had a female doctor who daily asked the highest ranking German prisoner for details of his bowel movements, including descriptions of size, color, consistency and difficulty of expulsion.
The main character finally asked the doctor why she was doing this. The doctor responded that eventually the war would end, the German Colonel would go home, and likely go into politics as a war hero. She wanted to make sure that his records from his time as a POW included what looked like, upon review, the prisoner fetishizing his bowel movements and being completely obsessed with them.
What will a political opponent be able to do with leaks of medical records of, say, an old Senator who uses Viagra regularly?
"What are hippa laws?"
Laws that regulate the behaviour of female hippos.
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