06-20-2013, 11:16 AM
(06-19-2013, 03:58 PM)sally Wrote: Children are killed all the time from being left unattended with pets. Do you also think it's outrageous for the pediatrician to ask if you have pets in the house and if so do you leave your infant unattended around them? It's just a safety awareness thing and nothing more.
When Obama Care - The Affordable Care Act - was implemented, questions arose about the wording in one of its provisions. Some doctors thought it prohibited them from asking questions about guns. It didn't.
In regards to whether doctors can ask, it's the same in this country as it always was. Doctors can ask, patients can decline to answer. That's now been clarified by the Obama Administration. There is no regulation involved.
That "executive action" to clarify that the Affordable Care Act doesn't prohibit doctors from asking wasn't part of the background check/safety bill at all. It was just a communication of clarification, not subject to vote, and already a done deal.
Note: Florida had an NRA-backed law that prohibited doctors from asking gun-related questions. Physicians went to court to overturn the law. Last I read, the law was overturned as a violation of the doctors' first amendment rights. Those kinds of state-specific laws (not federal) were what prompted doctors to seek clarification to the wording of Obama Care's language.