"Make no sense to me---you proffer arguments that you and other medical professional don't wish to and are not "arms of Law Enforcement" then you admit you already are."
I regret that you cannot comprehend the situation. You are frequently fixated on minor distinctions and matters of degree, seizing upon the smallest detail and trying to make it into a profound contradiction. Perhaps you could grasp it if you look at it this way:
We fight for health. That means the health of the patient always comes first, unless others are at risk, when that health concern is greater.
Maybe you could try to see it this way:
How would you want your doctor to treat you? Would you like to be reported to the police if you admitted you didn't wear your seatbelt where that is illegal? That you sped? That you had a beer underage? Naw, nobody wants that. How about if a doctor treated a serial killer and let them walk out unreported and they killed your daughter? That would ******, right? Would you think the abhorrent crime maybe tilts the balance from their privacy to the public safety?
Or maybe you just need to think about it, period, because when you say stuff like this:
"All I'm suggesting is that since your already de-facto acting in said capacity of aiding Law Enforcement that its not much of reach to add reporting illegals to ICE/Police........not suggesting you don't treat them."
... you make it obvious you're arguing before thinking. How many dozen times have we already said that calling people to have them deported means they don't get the treatment they need? And since you set up a little ethical slip n slide for us, why don't we just slowly add reporting duties for doctors until... we're reporting women who drink while pregnant? We report drug users? We turn in kids for drinking? Have you really no ability to see what that would do to the public trust in doctors? Do I need to mention AGAIN that the police and INS don't want these calls? I mean, really--the data is all there in our financial system and our drug tests and medical records. IF we wanted to live in an awful police state, we could have LEO's pouring through private medical data. But, nobody but you would want that.
"As I mentioned its not the medical professions job to interperate the Law as set by the people."
Great! Thanks for the advice! I'm following the law by reporting what's required and not reporting illegals! Can you hush up about it now? I bet not--because you don't care about this point, you're just raising it to argue.
"There is no " public health need " to reporting GSW's, of potential child abuse cases either.......what is the " public health " concern from either? Sure public safty ----but public health?"
Wow. So, you don't think it's bad for some adult's health if they get shot by a gangbanger I fixed up and sent back out to fight? You don't think it's bad for children's health to get raped or beaten? Or are you going to argue the public isn't made up of adults and children? What is your point, that raping a kid isn't contagious like the flu? You're resorting to nitpicking the distinction between health and safety as if the same ethics of protection wouldn't apply to them... greeeeat.
"Besides, I seem to recall a recent study about various communicable infections that occur with some regularity in the illegal population-----the result of zero to poor medical care in the natiosn they are from-----would that not be a "public health concern?"
Don't start tangential discussions you're not armed to participate in. Here, if you're going to argue that illegal immigrants should be reported to the police because they're at a higher risk of something like TB, well, you've got to figure out the exact rate of transmission or seriousness of disease we're going to set as a threshold for action. It seems pretty clear you're just fishing for any excuse to call the police on these people... otherwise we might as well start reporting, say, men who have sex with men, black people, and IV drug users to the police because they could be spreading AIDS. Should we use your logic to do that? How about just calling the police when you see a black person because their risk of gonorrhea is estimated to be 32 times that of whites? Is that a good idea? Here's some points for you to think about: recent immigration, legal or illegal, IS a reason to test for latent TB. Anyone with positive tests can benefit from a dept. of public health initiative to keep them treated to prevent active, contaigious disease. But they simply are not a great enough risk to mandate therapy or deportation. Active TB gets you reported to the DPH and if you don't behave--including isolation from others--you can be confined. The difference? Active TB is an immediate public health threat. Who decided to make it reportable? Legislators with physician guidance, on a case by case basis, disease by disease. People have already thought about your point that illegals carry more TB than natives. And it's been rejected as a concern. Frankly, neither I nor you have the background in TB epidemiology or stats to go into the details why. Suffice to say you made a "talking point" without any info to back it up.
"Nope, [I'm] not "ignorant" simply appalled at the arrogant fashion you hold yourself somehow above the law and the egotistical manner in which you abrogate to yourself the right to dictate legal policy to fellow citizens."
Abrogate means "to formally put an end to." Really. Go look it up. Anyhoo: you are indeed ignorant of the practice of medicine and the relevant law and ethics. I think we all know you're not formally trained in them. If you'd like to tell us where and how you educated yourself on the issues, I'd be delighted to hear--just like that zip code you couldn't provide. The fact is this: I am not holding myself above the law. I am not "dictating" policy to anyone. I am simply trying to tell you HOW IT IS. I've been reporting how this works and how I MUST act under the laws that others wrote. Get it? You're not familiar with it, I am, I'm explaining it to you. I agree with the laws, but I didn't write em. Clear?
"My and my Wink might indeed be sarcastic----but at least my ideology unlike yours don't get people killed ----amazing to me that you can insist---with all the proofs otherwise that illegals don't kill people and commit crimes."
You should write a how to guide on not getting it. Do you REALLY think that what I meant is that no illegal has ever or will ever committed a crime? Huh? Or do you think that what I meant is that the level of risk doesn't justify turning over any illegal over to the police? Maybe a parallel rant will help:
http://www.americandaily.com/article/9584
That's an article explaining how blacks are responsible for many many more crimes than whites. So... what should we do about that? Should we say that their increased risk relative to whites and asians mandates a 911 call every time a dcotor sees a black person? Or, is it possible, just possible, that even though blacks are more prone to crime than average, the individual threat they present is so negligible and close to the rest of the population that such an idea would be--you know--ludicrous?
"You, being a medical professional with an interest in illegals don't know of the burden said illegals place up the medical system as a whole????????
Jesus's IJ, and you accuse me of being ignorant? Sad. Its either a dodge or your so out of touch and uneducted on the topic that your simply blowing smoke........but I'll tell you what I'll do....just this once.....I'll do your research for you and post some----if I can I'll do it today."
THAT is a FIRST--you doing any research. Welcome to the club! To your point: I am perfectly aware that illegal immigrants are part of the strain put on emergency rooms and hospital systems in general. YOUR claim was that there are some places where people cant get any care at all--so I asked for a zip. I'm not disputing that healthcare costs money (obviously), I was attacking your overstatement of the situation. I'm sorry to deprive you of a "point" in our discussion, but as you might imagine, I am quite aware of the situation WRT uncompensated care in southern california--maybe that's because I work at the public hospital in san diego, the city with the busiest border crossing on the US-Mexico border, and in fact, any border, if memory serves. I attend budget meeting on the issue. It affects our reimbursement and the hospital subsidizes my salary as a result. So yeah--perfectly aware.
You forgot a little detail in all your excitement. My point, for the last thousand posts, has NEVER been that the USA shouldn't do anything about payments for other nation's poor. I have said, over and over, the government has a right to deport these people. I have also said it would be pretty shameful to make use of them in our economy, paying them little, taking federal income tax they can't file for, whatever--and then kick them out the moment they get sick and become a liability. And my major point has been: IT'S UNETHICAL TO MAKE SOMEONE'S PHYSICIAN AN AGENT OF THEIR HARM or a tool to compromise a confidential relationship, and this should be and is only done when serious issues are at stake--contagion and crime of sufficient import. Got it?
Just because illegals sometimes commit a crime or give someone TB (things all demographics do, albeit at lower rates) does not mean that's a crisis worth screwing up the doctor patient relationship. That's just how it is. May you someday grasp it.
