The "Obamacare sex questions" nonsense - FYI on what the dashboard believers are being told

[underpants]

Doctors, not Obamacare, will ask you about your sex life
http://theincidentaleconomist.com/wordpress/doctors-not-obamacare-will-ask-you-about-your-sex-life/
September 16, 2013

So take this piece by Betsy McCaughey with a grain of salt:

Evidently Ms. McCaughey knows some pretty crappy doctors, because if you consider it “inappropriate and unnecessary” to talk to your patients about their sex lives, then you really shouldn’t be in the business. I agree that it’s not necessary to ask these questions at every visit for every complaint. But seriously, a cardiologist is saying he can’t imagine a single occasion when he might ask a patient about his sex life? Really? I’m speechless.

There are federal EHR requirements. But those are part of the HITECH Act (which was part of ARRA), not Obamacare. What Obamacare introduces is that insurance must now reimburse physicians for preventive services. These include things like STI counseling (which is why more docs may ask about sex). They also include lots of other stuff, especially for women and children. I’m fine with this, because these things work. They have evidence behind them. That’s why they’re in there. For years, we’ve paid for tons of things that don’t work, while not paying for things that do. This tries to right that balance.

But, hey, if you don’t do those things as a doctor, you won’t be “penalized”. You won’t get paid for them, and your patients might suffer, but no Obamacare thugs will come to get you. Moreover, there’s nothing in the law that mandates that the answers to your questions be sent anywhere or to the government. They’re part of your medical record, as they always have been, and they’re protected by the same laws that have always protected your data.

There are legitimate reasons to dislike Obamacare. It amazes me how opponents of the law keep needing to invent ones that aren’t accurate in order to rail against it.

Doctors As Sex Police: Baseless Obamacare Lie Jumps To Fox News
http://mediamatters.org/blog/2013/09/17/doctors-as-sex-police-baseless-obamacare-lie-ju/195913
5 hours and 50 minutes ago ››› JUSTIN BERRIER

Fox News and serial health care misinformer Betsy McCaughey are baselessly stoking fears that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) will force doctors to ask "intrusive" sexual history questions that are already standard medical practice.

As Wonkette pointed out, McCaughey offered no evidence for her claims that the ACA changes existing practices. In fact, despite her fearmongering, sexual history questions are routine medical practice. The Centers For Disease Control calls such questions "an important part of a regular medical exam or physical history" and recommends that "[a] sexual history needs to be taken during a patient's initial visit, during routine preventive exams, and when you see signs of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs)." In fact, the very questions that McCaughey claims doctors will now be pressured to ask are the exact questions the CDC recommends doctors ask their patients.

[Benton D Struckcheon]

1. Yeah, that would be news to my wife.

Sex, as a normal part of life, is also a normal part of the stuff doctors ask about. Rubes.

[Solly Mack]

2. Damn