First Death Panels, Now Sex Panels? Maybe!

Remember Betsy McCaughey? She’s the fine lady who originally brought us the death panel. (Before some half-term governor took it and ran.)  Well, she’s back.

This time, she’s peddling the alarming news that your doctor will soon be forced to ask you all sorts of “intrusive” sexual history questions — and it’s all Obama’s fault! (Or, rather, it’s all due to the Affordable Care Act.)

‘Are you sexually active? If so, with one partner, multiple partners or same-sex partners?”

Be ready to answer those questions and more the next time you go to the doctor, whether it’s the dermatologist or the cardiologist and no matter if the questions are unrelated to why you’re seeking medical help. And you can thank the Obama health law.

Except… Ms. McCaughey is pushing this  story with nary an iota of evidence to support her claim. And if you’ve been to a doctor in the last decade, you are probably already aware that these sorts of questions are already standard 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.

Let’s be clear: there is no provision in the ACA to force doctors to ask these questions, or any others. For that matter, McCaughey and her ilk made sure that doctors couldn’t be required to even offer end-of-life counseling. Further, there have been no regulations released by HHS during the implementation process which would do what McCaughey claims.

As near as I can tell, she cites an NRA-pushed provision of the bill which prohibits government from compelling doctors to ask about firearms, and somehow extrapolates from there that since that’s the only thing specifically prohibited, the government is free to compel doctors to ask anything else the nosy, nosy gubmint wants to know.  Then, for reasons known to only herself, Ms. McCaughey chooses sexual history questions about which to obsess and fear-monger. And why not? “Death panels” was such an unqualified  success! Her recent book? Not so much.  As McCaughey makes the conservative media rounds, look for this rumor to enjoy wider exposure.

By: Sandi Behrns

Sandi Behrns is a noted policy nerd, new media & web developer, and consultant to progressive organizations and campaigns. She is a senior contributor to Liberaland, and the Executive Editor of Progressive Congress News.