Regulations - you won't believe this one

Regulations - you won't believe this one

Neal Boortz
Nov. 7, 2011

Here’s the scenario. I got this from a column in the Naples Daily News by Jeff Lytle. You’re playing in your favorite foursome a Florida golf course around midday on Saturday. Suddenly one of your pals grabs his chest, starts coughing and falls to the ground. It’s pretty clear you’re having a heart attack. Not good. So you pull out the cell phone that you’re not supposed to have on the golf course an you dial 911. In moments the ambulance is on the way; but from experience the EMTs in the ambulance know that once they get to the golf course they’re going to have difficulty getting to the patient. They may be too late.

But wait! There’s a lifesaving device in the pro shop! They have an AED, an Automatic Electronic Defibrillator. While the ambulance is on the way they could put this thing in a golf cart and get it out to your stricken friend very quickly. You don’t know that the pro shop has an AED, so you didn’t call them. You’re busy tending to your friend and trying to see if you can keep him alive until the EMTs get there. The EMTs in the ambulance do know, however, that there’s an AED at the pro shop. You see, if you have an AED you can register with a network in Florida showing where AEDs are located in commercial and some private establishments. “Well, that’s great!” you say. “The EMTs can just call the pro shop and tell them to get an AED out to the stricken golfer while they’re on the way!” Well … actually, no they can’t. That would be illegal. Patient privacy laws, you see, prevent the EMTs from informing a third party about your medical condition without your permission, so they cannot call the pro shop and tell them they are responding to a heart attack. The pro shop would be the third party.

Gotta love government!

So called patient-privacy laws only seal off other patients and healthcare workers. These laws were written by the health insurance industry to give them exclusive access and block anyone else.

I believe yall refer to this as 'crony capitalism' here... where private business buys laws/legislation and elected representation profits alongside those who purchased them.

Thomas Jefferson would have these abusers of liberty drawn and quartered... in public.

Well put.

Arx Ferrum wrote:So called patient-privacy laws only seal off other patients and healthcare workers. These laws were written by the health insurance industry to give them exclusive access and block anyone else.

I believe yall refer to this as 'crony capitalism' here... where private business buys laws/legislation and elected representation profits alongside those who purchased them.

Thomas Jefferson would have these abusers of liberty drawn and quartered... in public.

Damn skippy!

Federal Regulation for every shop to have said device just like fire extinguishers ---> Problem solved!

That is, of course, only if a person's life is important enough to justify another one of government's job killing, evil intrustion into the private sector.