Thursday, January 10, 2013

NYC Mayor Creates A One Man Pain Medication Control Board: Himself

Mayor Michael Bloomberg is a total control freak. NYT reports:
Some of the most common and most powerful prescription painkillers on the market will be restricted sharply in the emergency rooms at New York City’s 11 public hospitals, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said Thursday in an effort to crack down on what he called a citywide and national epidemic of prescription drug abuse.

Under the new city policy, most public hospital patients will no longer be able to get more than three days’ worth of narcotic painkillers like Vicodin and Percocet. Long-acting painkillers, including OxyContin, a familiar remedy for chronic backache and arthritis, as well as Fentanyl patches and methadone, will not be dispensed at all. And lost, stolen or destroyed prescriptions will not be refilled.[...]

“Here is my problem with legislative medicine,” said Dr. Alex Rosenau, president-elect of the American College of Emergency Physicians and senior vice chairman of emergency medicine at Lehigh Valley Health Network in Eastern Pennsylvania. “It prevents me from being a professional and using my judgment.”

While someone could fake a toothache to get painkillers, he said, another patient might have legitimate pain and not be able to get an appointment at a dental clinic for days. Or, he said, a patient with a hand injury may need more than three days of pain relief until the swelling goes down and an operation could be scheduled.

16 comments:

  1. Once someone makes it into public office, it seems as though all professional organizations in existence, should immediately confer to them a single degree in "omniscient perfectness" to accompany their busy-body, control-freakdom.

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  2. Bloomberg is clearly unhinged. The man has lost all touch with reality.

    When are the people of NYC going to rid themselves of this sorry excuse for a human being?

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  3. Whether it's gun ownership, economic "macro" events like "the paradox of thrift", choosing ones own food or drink and/or self medicating, average people are just damned too stupid to be allowed to take care of themselves. They need nanny staters to force them to do the right thing. Of course, average people are quite skilled at choosing their nanny stater overseers in elections (so long as the nanny staters can control political contributions so that average people don't inadvertently hear a political ad that confuses them).

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  4. It would appear as if Nurse Bloomberg's problems, like those of the patients he seeks to regulate, are supratentorial.

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  5. Instant death penalty if you're caught with vikes and a large soda.

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  6. He is the Mayor of Pain! hahahaha (the Penguin's laughter echoing and fading into the cave)

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  7. New York is getting exactly what it deserves. The majority of them always vote for some big government person. They will never learn to stop doing that without experiencing the endless encroachment that characterize central planning, without something like this.

    Keep it up Mayor Bloomberg. More controls. Let's educate New Yorkers about the joys of big government. Hey, he's here to help,

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    1. Yes. Rothbard explained that the first government intervention (eg. correcting the national "hang-nail gap") unsurprisingly leads to cascading interventions. Why be shocked by this latest intervention by Bloomberg? According to the logic supporting the very first intervention, he is being quite reasonable.

      Anon, I agree with you. Let others witness the results of central planning in NYC. It will be a valuable education to those open to learning.

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  8. To paraphrase Dr Rosenau, here is my problem with all legislation: it prevents me from acting as a free human being, using my judgment.

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  9. There's always an epidemic for him to solve.

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  10. When the government tries to control painkillers and medications like this it has deadly consequences as Kurt Harris discusses here:

    http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/archevore/201103/tylenol-and-the-war-drugs

    And this story from Slate about govt during prohibition poisoning alcohol so people wouldn't drink it. Except that they did and a lot of people died:

    http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2010/02/the_chemists_war.html

    More govt to the rescue!!

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  11. The one thing Commissar Bloomberg seems uninterested in controlling is himself.

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  12. Dealers of opiate based pain killers will become wealthier now that the ban of pain killers is on. Criminals will be knocking at doors offering pain killers for cheap. Seniors in Florida will be supplementing their incomes by selling millions of pain killers to visiting NYC drug dealers at an average price of 50 cents a pill. The terminally unemployed will be busy now that pain pills have become hard to get in hospitals.

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  13. Seems like the Mayor would have bigger problems than monitoring how Drs prescibe drugs. Let the Drs do their job and the Mayor get back to his own business. I personally think he needs drugs for his irrational behavior. Mind your own business Bloomie.

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  14. If doctors don't ban together and fight and resist this type of nitwit nonsense, this will just be the beginning of crippling them from attending to the welfare of their patients.

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  15. Unfortunately, common people are still not aware of the fact that a simple pain can be an indication of some serious despise, and they keep on popping pain killers and analgesics, without consulting a doctor, and it can be truly harmful for their kidneys.

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