Dr. Jack Cassell, a urologist in Mt. Dora, Florida, doesn't like the new health care law. That's fine. He is quite vocal about it. That's fine too. This is, after all, America, where everyone is free to speak their minds, and I wouldn't have it any other way. But he went too far when he put up a sign on his office door earlier this month saying, "If you voted for Obama, seek urologic care elsewhere."
After a furor erupted, Cassell backtracked slightly, saying he hasn't actually told any Democratic-voting patients to go away, "but if they read the sign and turn the other way, so be it." Since he evidently relies on his patients' identifying themselves as either real Americans or traitors, I wonder just how he plans to weed out one from the other. Will he put up a big poster of Sarah Palin to scare away pinkos as a crucifix scares away vampires? Or maybe he'll use such phrases as "socialist dictator" with patients and gauge their reactions.
Rep. Alan Grayson, the firebrand Florida Democrat whose district is home to Cassell's office, said he would file an ethics complaint with the state medical board on the grounds that refusing to treat Democratic patients is the same as refusing to treat black patients. He's wrong; the two are very different, and Grayson comes off as just trying to cash in on the fuss politically.
That is not to say that Cassell is acting professionally - quite the opposite. Even more so than in other fields, a doctor is expected to put his patients' needs above his own prejudices, and this goes double for something as (comparatively) unimportant as partisan politics. Telling sick patients who voted for the "wrong" candidate to get lost is, to put it mildly, extremely unprofessional, not to mention childish. And I would say the same thing had he put up a sign telling McCain voters to "seek urologic care elsewhere."
Cassell should rethink his choice of office decor. Either that or get a job which doesn't directly affect people's lives and health.
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