Monday in America

[chunkymonster]

I love how this turned into another circle jerk.

I agree the media discussion has (and this thread?) turned into a circle jerk. However, I'm glad to hear that the discussion is also highlighting his prior run-ins with the law and the fact that he was mentally ill rather than just immediately going to screaming for more gun control. I mean, from what I've seen., the gun control crowd is parading crying families on stage for the cameras and going on about saving the children, and it seems to be having far less impact that it did after Sandy Hook.

So how does one stop a person with two prior gun offenses from buying a shotgun?

That's the million dollar question, brother! How do you stop the crazies from exercising a constitutional right without abating the civil liberties and constitutional rights of everyone else?

 

[Reynod]

Get rid of all of the guns?

 

[riser]

In order to allow them to check your psych record, they have to repeal a portion of HIPAA.. which is a Democrat's baby because they implemented it to allow teenage females the option of abortions. In order to review psych history, they have to remove that portion.. double edged sword for the liberal agenda.

HIPAA is the Democrats' baby as it was originally intended to pave the way for a national EMR system which would be needed for socialized medicine. The acronym is "Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act" for chrissakes. They're practically telling you right out front what it's for, especially today when "accountability" is synonymous for "heavily government-regulated." Remember when it was passed that the Democrats just saw Hillarycare shot down. Do not think for a second that the thought of eventually getting that passed ever left their minds. Much of HIPAA enables Obamacare and why Obama's two main healthcare bills, Obamacare and the HITECH Act, all added things to the HIPAA legislation.

The other main function of HIPAA is to allow the Office of Civil Rights the authority to levy enormous fines on hospitals as a money-making racket. Note that Obama increased these fines in 2010 and also greatly increased the fine liability of hospitals.

I highly doubt that HIPAA had much to do with trying to keep abortions secret. Hospitals and doctors' offices already had privacy policies in place and it was very much in their best interest to not leak their patients' information all over everywhere, lest the patients not come back. If it was really about abortions, why did it take until 1996 to pass this law when Roe v. Wade occurred in 1973? The Democrats controlled the government during the 1970s, they would have passed it then. There also have been many other laws passed which are not HIPAA which deal with parental non-notification of certain medical conditions and counseling such as for contraception and STI treatment.

HIPAA could also be easily modified to allow for disclosure of mental health records for firearms background checks. All Congress would have to do is pass a law that amends HIPAA and says something to the effect of "information pertaining to the diagnosis and treatment of mental health conditions may legally be disclosed to the FBI for the sole use of performing NICS checks." That would otherwise leave the law completely intact except for that one specific exemption. HIPAA is already full of exemptions of certain things for certain uses.

If your 16 year old daughter gets an abortion on your insurance, should you as a parent be made aware? HIPAA protects that. You as a parent do not have rights into your daughter's medical history without her permission.

 

[riser]

Get rid of all of the guns?

Do a count on how many guns are in America. Good luck. 😀 Last count it was like 3 per citizen or something.. that were at least known.

 

[riser]

The same FBI contractor who vetted Snowden also vetted this guy. Goes to show that the gov't is lacking in their job. They hire contractors out who are only concerned about making money, not vetting the process.

With I had my clearance, I was interviewed by a real FBI agent because my paperwork was submitted incorrectly 3 times by the staff. That triggers an automatic FBI person to interview me. Others had the contractor.. a 30 minute conversation with them. My interview went over 4 hours with someone who definitely was able to assess mental health, personality, and all that crap.

 

[chunkymonster]

Get rid of all of the guns?

Wait, wasn't the Naval Base a "gun free zone" where no one was supposed to have guns except by those were permitted to have them?

Nah, getting rid of all the guns wouldn't stop the mentally ill from committing mass acts of violence. Rather, it would be better to stop the problem at the root by committing all people with mental illness to institutions. If they are in institutions getting treatment and being supervised, then they have no opportunity to commit mass acts of violence.

Hopefully, folks see the folly of getting rid of all the guns is as absurd as committing everyone who is mentally ill.

Getting rid of all the guns would literally require the local or state police or some government entity to go door to door to collect them. Would anyone really want local SWAT or BATFE teams driving through their neighborhood in armored personnel carriers aiming their laser sighted M4's at a family just to get the shotgun given to them by a dead Uncle or the M1 Garand legally ordered through the CMP Program? Can you imagine the violence and bloodshed if that were to happen?

 

[chunkymonster]

HIPAA could also be easily modified to allow for disclosure of mental health records for firearms background checks. All Congress would have to do is pass a law that amends HIPAA and says something to the effect of "information pertaining to the diagnosis and treatment of mental health conditions may legally be disclosed to the FBI for the sole use of performing NICS checks." That would otherwise leave the law completely intact except for that one specific exemption. HIPAA is already full of exemptions of certain things for certain uses.

Sadly, the recent gun control laws proposed by certain States (New York, Colorado, New Jersey, etc) included requirements for release of mental health records for NICS. This was done intentionally because the anti-gun crowd and Democrats want exactly that to happen, tie all medical (mental and physical) records together at the Federal level as a means to control, monitor, and legislate the behaviors of the people.

No, this is not conspiracy, this is the logical end result of the ACA, i.e.; requiring your General Practitioner to ask you or your children if there are guns in the house as part of a routine check-up and then report that as part of your medical records.

 

[musical marv]

I think it is pretty easy to understand ... the guy was mentally ill and untreated and unnoticed ... he snapped ... bang bang ... the end.

You can quote me on that.

Where did he get the key to the weapons locker?

Tell that to the families no big deal what you are really implying.It seems you are heartless.

 

[riser]

I think it is pretty easy to understand ... the guy was mentally ill and untreated and unnoticed ... he snapped ... bang bang ... the end.

You can quote me on that.

Where did he get the key to the weapons locker?

Tell that to the families no big deal what you are really implying.It seems you are heartless.

Been over a year, still waiting for info on Benghazi.

Did you know the other day the families of the fallen were in Congress to tell their story? All but 1 Dem walked out so they wouldn't have to listen to the families talk about the pain of not knowing how or why their children died.

 

[wanamingo]

Did you know the other day the families of the fallen were in Congress to tell their story? All but 1 Dem walked out so they wouldn't have to listen to the families talk about the pain of not knowing how or why their children died.

Im not sure why I get roped into this..... There were 2 dems out of 17 and 6 republicans out of 24 on the committee. Issa is a fail troll.

 

[riser]

Many of the republicans weren't even present. Remember, the Republicans are the ones who have already talked to the parents and are the ones demanding the answers. The Democrats, from best I can read on all the article, state they walked out. From what I see, no republican got up and left knowing they were going to talk.

This is a Democrat cover up, which is significant that so many are walking out. No one still knows what happened that costs 4 Americans their lives. When Seal Team 6 took a loss, within a week or two they had killed all the people responsible. Here we are over a year later without any answers or any idea on why security teams were told to stand down.

 

[MU_Engineer]

If your 16 year old daughter gets an abortion on your insurance, should you as a parent be made aware? HIPAA protects that. You as a parent do not have rights into your daughter's medical history without her permission.

That's not exactly 100% correct. HIPAA does prevent the parent from calling the clinic and requesting the information about what happened. However, if the girl used her parent's insurance, the parents would absolutely see a statement/get a bill from the insurer and/or the facility (since they are the guarantor/directly insured party) stating at the very least the CPT codes for the billable charges, the date they were charged, and the facility which did the charging. Most parents would at least ask some questions of their family members if they got a statement from their insurer for a doctor's visit that they didn't know about. Most parents are smarter enough than their teenagers to be able to either know what is going on by just looking at the statement (a mother seeing a D&C from an OB/GYN she does not use) or in knowing when they have a cock and bull story from their kid ("oh, it was a sore throat" doesn't work very often!) and persisting until they got the real answer.

That's why if any minor ever comes into the hospital or clinic, we tell them to pay cash if they don't want their parents to be able to (indirectly) find out what is going on. That generally ends up with either the kid telling their parents they were having sex and caught the clap or that they got knocked up (and then we treat them, on insurance) or getting social work involved and referring the patient to the county health department or Planned Parenthood as a charity case and their parents very likely never find out.

Sadly, the recent gun control laws proposed by certain States (New York, Colorado, New Jersey, etc) included requirements for release of mental health records for NICS. This was done intentionally because the anti-gun crowd and Democrats want exactly that to happen, tie all medical (mental and physical) records together at the Federal level as a means to control, monitor, and legislate the behaviors of the people.

What you say is absolutely true. The Democrats passed the HITECH Act in 2010 which mandates by the end of 2014 IIRC that essentially mandates that anybody who bills either Medicare or Medicaid use an EMR with a certain set of features being actively used or end up with massive reductions in the already piss-poor payments for seeing these patients. (More docs would flip the bird at the feds and simply opt out of seeing Medicare and Medicaid patients except that those programs are responsible for paying for about 2/3 of all patients visits in any setting, so you really can't not deal with them.) The real scary part from a Big Brother perspective is the "meaningful use" provisions. Those essentially require that all of your information from vitals to medications to diagnoses to lab results to even physical exam and history findings be in a structured-data database. That data-miner's dream of a database also must be able to be queried by outside facilities. The purported reason the feds give is that it can help with "research." You can get a good idea of what these "researchers" are looking at just by picking up an issue of a left-wing ivory-tower academic medicine journal like JAMA which unfortunately shows up in my mailbox every two weeks unsolicited. These "researchers" openly state that they intend to use (and already are using) data mined from EMRs to shape public policy and give horrid scenarios for their "solutions" to the "problems" that would make George Orwell blush. The other reason all of these things end up in a large database is for the purposes of finding a reason to pay docs less. The government will set an unattainable idealistic goal of some metric like keeping everybody's blood pressure below 120/80 at all times and then reduce reimbursements to "poor performing" docs.

No, this is not conspiracy, this is the logical end result of the ACA, i.e.; requiring your General Practitioner to ask you or your children if there are guns in the house as part of a routine check-up and then report that as part of your medical records.

That is not entirely true. That question is one which is recommended to be asked at screenign visits by the pediatric specialty trade group called The American Academy of Pediatrics as well as the government Agency for Health Care Quality but it is not required at the current time. Very few docs at least in my neck of the woods ask those questions as they are also worried about the government using the information for nefarious purposes and want to keep it out of the EMR.

 

[riser]

But it still can be hidden depending on the doctors, etc. If a parent doesn't know the codes, or the doctor said she's having stomach pains (which technically is true) and they perform an abortion, or to that effect, the parent may never really know. They may just pay the bill and assume the codes and whatever were to treat stomach pains.

It isn't a perfect system if you're a somewhat present parent. But really, it is there to make it harder to let others know what's going on. Now, take your 18-25 year old kid who is in college and still on your health insurance. Yeah, you get a bill from the ER, or some place that codes it differently. I had the flu, went to the doctor, it was a $250 copay, etc. Or they can pay the copay right then and there and never really let the parents know what's going on.

What I'm saying is that the HIPAA laws left this possibility open which prevents background checks on one's mental state.

 

[MU_Engineer]

But it still can be hidden depending on the doctors, etc. If a parent doesn't know the codes, or the doctor said she's having stomach pains (which technically is true) and they perform an abortion, or to that effect, the parent may never really know. They may just pay the bill and assume the codes and whatever were to treat stomach pains.

It isn't a perfect system if you're a somewhat present parent. But really, it is there to make it harder to let others know what's going on. Now, take your 18-25 year old kid who is in college and still on your health insurance. Yeah, you get a bill from the ER, or some place that codes it differently. I had the flu, went to the doctor, it was a $250 copay, etc. Or they can pay the copay right then and there and never really let the parents know what's going on.

College kids are a much different story than those under 18 and living at home. Most larger universities have a student health center funded by mandatory per-semester fees which covers pretty much all outpatient care. It never goes through the parents' insurance so you can get your contraceptives, STI checks and treatment, and also mental health stuff done and parents never know because it doesn't go through their insurance. Most all abortions are done at Planned Parenthood which also doesn't generally go through insurance, so a parent of an adult child would never know.

The minors are a little different story. Office visits are nearly impossible to determine what they were for based on insurance charge information alone. All you see is the office E&M code for most visits. The E&M code only varies based on time spent/number of diagnoses made/if the pt is new or not. If any meds are given, you usually see a generic "medication charge" and a medication administration charge. It's impossible to tell if a visit was for strep throat where a swab was done and a shot of penicillin was given or if it was for gonorrhea and you ran GC testing and gave them a shot of ceftriaxone. It all looks the exact same from a billing perspective- E&M code, generic lab charge, generic med charge, generic injection charge. However other procedures are much more telltale as there are far more specific charges for procedures than there are for office visits. If you do a D&E on somebody for an abortion, you are going to see a code for D&E, not a "miscellaneous office procedure." There is little ambiguity there. A parent who sees that charge code on the statement and spends 30 seconds with a search engine will figure out exactly what went on. HIPAA often does NOT apply for abortions as parents must by law be notified or consent for a minor to have an abortion in 38 states at the present time. 8 other states have laws on the books but they are tied up in court and currently are under an injunction. So parents would be likely to find out anyway, unless the kid travels to a state with an enjoined or no notification law on the books. That would be a fun road trip from Florida to go to NY or IL, the two next closest states with no notification laws active...

 

[riser]

It would still be after the fact though. If they did get a D&E, they would be able to do it prior to the parent actually knowing, correct? The doctor can't call the parents to tell them what's going on with their child unless the child gives consent.
Same goes with birth control, get a script for it and the parents won't know. 15 year old daughter tells the doc she's whoring herself out to build up her college fund, needs some BC and a shot or two for her STDs. Parents won't know until after the fact.

And that was the goal. It is easier to do it and ask forgiveness than to ask permission.

 

[MU_Engineer]

It would still be after the fact though. If they did get a D&E, they would be able to do it prior to the parent actually knowing, correct? The doctor can't call the parents to tell them what's going on with their child unless the child gives consent.
Same goes with birth control, get a script for it and the parents won't know. 15 year old daughter tells the doc she's whoring herself out to build up her college fund, needs some BC and a shot or two for her STDs. Parents won't know until after the fact.

And that was the goal. It is easier to do it and ask forgiveness than to ask permission.

The parents would have to know first in the parental consent states. I don't believe this is the case in the parental notification states.