Don’t Get In An Accident Or Have A Heart Attack!

If you live in Florida and you have a medical emergency because you might not make it to the hospital or refused treatment at the emergency room.

Ron DeSantis Signs ‘Right to Discriminate’ Law That Could Be Used Against LGBTQ+ Patients

This bill is a broad license for health care providers and insurance companies to refuse services to the people,” said Brandon Wolf, Equality Florida press secretary.

Advocate

By Jacob Ogles

May 13, 2023

A new law in Florida will soon allow doctors to turn away LGBTQ+ patients, citing religious and moral objections.

Gov. Ron DeSantis on Thursday signed a “protections of medical conscience” bill as part of a so-called “medical freedom” agenda. Standing alongside controversial Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo, DeSantis signed the legislation along with bills preventing employers from requiring vaccination status for new employees and barring certain virus research.

“These expanded protections will help ensure that medical authoritarianism does not take root in Florida,” DeSantis said at a Pensacola press conference.

That’s ironic, by the assessment of LGBTQ advocates. Equality Florida has called the legislation a “right to discriminate” bill, and compared it to the infamous Religious Freedom Restoration Act signed by then-Indiana Gov. Mike Pence in 2015.

“This bill is a broad license for health care providers and insurance companies to refuse services to people,” said Brandon Wolf, Equality Florida press secretary. “No one should be denied access to medical care. It gives health care providers and insurance companies an unprecedented ‘religious’ or ‘moral’ right to refuse to provide services. This puts patients in harm’s way, is antithetical to the job of health care providers, and puts the most vulnerable Floridians in danger. Our state should be in the business of increasing access to medical care, not giving providers and companies a sweeping carve out of nondiscrimination laws. Shame on the governor for putting Floridians’ health at risk to score cheap, political points.”

Suppose you brought your children down to Florida to go to Disney World for spring break. You are a lesbian couple and you have two small children, one from your wife's previous marriage and one with your wife. As you start to turn in to the park, a tractor trailer cuts across in front of you.

Metro Weekly reported,

Under the law, which goes into effect on July 1, any medical provider, including doctors, nurses, ambulance drivers, pharmacists, mental health professionals, or lab technicians, as well as nursing home workers and hospital administrators, may refuse to provide care to patients if doing so would violate their conscience. Insurance companies also enjoy the right to deny care based on any moral, ethical, or religious objections.

As the ambulances come they see that you are a lesbian couple and the first ambulance on the scene the EMTs refuses to transport you to the hospital and drives off. You are waiting for another ambulance but your wife is fading in and out of consciousness.

“This bill is shocking in its breadth, vagueness, and government overreach into the private sector and regulated businesses,” Kara Gross, the legislative director and senior policy counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, said in a statement. “It goes far beyond any alleged claims of religious freedom, as it applies not just to religious objections but also to ‘moral’ and ‘ethical’ beliefs.

“Does the legislature really want to force private businesses to retain employees who refuse to do their job on the basis of a subjectively held alleged ‘ethical’ or ‘moral’ belief? What does this even mean?” added Gross. “Who determines what constitutes a sincerely held moral or ethical belief, and more importantly, why should access to health care be denied based on such vague, imprecise, and subjective terms? We have grave concerns that this bill will lead to discriminatory healthcare practices and that LGBTQ+ individuals, people of color, and those most marginalized in our communities will be disproportionately harmed.”

The ambulance finally gets her to the hospital but the hospital has problems with you being a lesbian couple and they tell you that you will not be able to see her because of the hospital policy on same sex marriages. Further more they say that they have to call the Florida Department of Children and Families because you are not the biological parent and they will take your children away from you. It is your worst nightmare, you kids are crying, you can’t see you wife… it is a nightmare that can’t wake up from!

Health care professionals are also empowered to refuse to conduct research, update medical records, conduct testing or blood draws, or even make referrals if they believe doing so would enable a patient to make decisions or take actions that violate their provider’s personal moral, ethical, or religious beliefs.

Then the bills come! Since you are the name on you health insurance policy they are refusing to cover your spouse’s bills! The nightmare just keeps getting worst and worst.

And it is not just emergency treatments that is also on the chopping block… your hormones, routine doctors’ visits may also not covered. The Advocate goes on to write,

The concern now, though, is that companies will be able to deny coverage for HIV-positive patients seeking PrEP. That’s a realistic concern, as Publix, Florida’s largest employer, briefly tried to refuse coverage for the HIV prevention strategy in 2018.

So you don’t think that can happen? Tyra Hunter back in 1995 died as a result of ambulance EMTs refuse to treat at an accident in Washington DC because she was trans.

And back in 2010…

A Florida hospital denied Janice Langbehn information and access to her dying partner for eight hours because they were a same-sex couple.

"The trauma social worker came out and said that I was 'in an anti-gay city and state' and that I wouldn't get to see Lisa nor be told about her condition without a health care proxy," the Washington State woman said.

If you are LGBTQ+ things are reverting to the Jim Crow era of discrimination against us.