I’m not impressed by the patriotic courage of the urologist who is refusing to treat Obamas supporters. His patients are mostly older men anyway, so he’s probably not giving up much business. If an OBGYN or a sickle cell anemia specialist was doing this, then I would be impressed.
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Catsy
I find the claim that he’s not “turning away” patients laughable. He has a sign outside telling a certain class of person to go away. Is he only turning them away if he says it to their face, is that how this works?
Undercover FBI Agent DougJ
He has a sign outside telling a certain class of person to go away.
He should also get credit for spelling all the words on the sign correctly.
Waynski
Maybe he’s just tired of spending his day inspecting other people’s genitals and figured as a Republican this was some kind of honorable way out.
flukebucket
But, but what about my murmuring prostate?
(You’re only going to get this if you watched CBS Sunday Morning yesterday and if you didn’t then to hell with it. It ain’t worth explaining)
Comrade Jake
Why do so many douchebags seem to live in Florida?
Some Guy
On a practical level, sure. But this politicization of medical care, turning it into a act of political resistance/warfare, is deeply disturbing. It is more than questionable in terms of professional ethics.
The Grand Panjandrum
And after his appearance on the Alan Colmes radio show he is more proof that not knowing shit about a particular issue (even when it directly effects how you make a living!) is not an impediment to getting a lot of publicity as long as you say it loudly AND with conviction.
freelancer
Title Ftw
Violet
I know doctors who have “fired” difficult patients. I always thought it was weird, but they told me they don’t have to treat people if they don’t want to. So I guess this idiot can refuse to treat people on whatever grounds he wants, right? Unless he’s specifically breaking a law – no Jews, no blacks, etc.
Mnemosyne
So he doesn’t accept Medicare patients, right? Because it would be awfully hypocritical for him to accept government money while screaming about government interference in medicine. Of course, he’s probably one of those guys who doesn’t realize that Medicare is a government program and not just magical money that materializes from the ass of Ayn Rand.
Just more proof that an advanced degree does not automatically mean that one is actually intelligent.
mistermix
Let’s see – urologist in Orlando. My guess is he’s treating at least a few old jews who voted for Obama.
Some Guy
Setting aside my abhorrence at his lapse in medical ethics (and painful ignorance), what if all the liberals who provide him services decided not to on general account of his stupid, mean spirited nature. Garbage removal? Not so much. Waited on at tables. Nope. Cable service. You wish. I think it would open his eyes a little bit: political racism makes life pretty shitty. Except in my little scenario, it is not political racism, just “ignore the jackass.”
Legalize
I have many family members in the nursing profession. The docs they work for all treat a considerable number of medicare recipients. All of the docs bitch about socialized medicine.
It’s not just Florida.
Silver Owl
The extreme pettiness of some people is quite shocking.
The arrogance of the man to even think that he should dictate to people how they vote is mind blowing. To treat his patients like they are mindless serfs awaiting his decree is insulting to all of them regardless of how they vote.
Martin
@The Grand Panjandrum:
Exactly this. One the one hand, we have this team of experts who collectively have 110 years of expertise on this topic who say that this will save thousands of lives each year and improve the nations economic standing, on the other hand Phyllis Magillicutty is convinced that the government wants to turn her grandkids into cat food. We report – you decide!
Bob L
hmm “Obama supporter” possibly code for “black”?
You got to admit that would be rather annoying going into specialist over something that might be life threatening and listen to him launch into a wingnut rant.
Zifnab
kill this
General Egali Tarian Stuck
Wingnuts being reading challenged wingnuts, when they swore to the Hippocratic Oath, thought it said Hippocritic
Oath/
Zifnab
I’m not sure what he’s hoping to achieve by this, except maybe an inglorious 15 minutes of fame. That said, I’d be curious to meet all the Glenn Beck supporters lined up around the block waiting to have their gland handled by a True Believer.
Midnight Marauder
@Mnemosyne:
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa…government money? In MY Medicare?!
Ben JB
If an OBGYN or a sickle cell anemia specialist
…or a Tay-Sachs researcher?
gizmo
I hear that urologists are passing out Viagra to their older male patients. Keeps them from pissing on their slippers….
Bob K
Dr. Jack Cassell
Mount Dora, FL
Gender: M
Specialty: Urologist
Webpage:
Hospital
:
Answers Email:
Online Appt. Scheduling:
Accepting New Patients:
Phone Number: 352-383-3773
Correct above doc info
# Ratings: 23
Avg Punctuality: 1.9
Avg Helpfulness: 1.7
Avg Knowledge: 1.8
Overall Quality*: 1.7
Range: 1-5 (5 is best)
* Helpfulness & Knowledge only
Empathy – .5 – Just another compassionate conservative.
Camchuck
Certainly would have less impact than, say, a sign at the Unemployment Office that shoos away Libertarians.
More impact, however, than a sign at the Scripps-Howard Spelling Bee saying “Teabaggers go home!”
jeffreyw
Fuckin tag team of front page posters, Jeez, can a guy take time for lunch around here?
clonecone
He should turn away all his medicare patients if he hates government funded healthcare so much. I’m guessing that would eliminate 99% of his patients and leave him plenty of free time to tour with Glenn Beck. Doctors are the new plumbers.
yellowdog
@ Mnemosyne (I have no Reply ability)
I read somewhere that he does not accept Medicare. If that is true then he’s only been treating rich people (women do occasionally need a urologist, too) anyway.
Punchy
Wow, this site is fucked up. All sorts of crazy colors, tab shifts, font size differences……..Cole, this puppy needs a tune-up, fast.
As for the doc….he wears scrubs while being interviewed on TV? Who the fuck does that?
Kerry Reid
I worked at Planned Parenthood in the early 90s, and our clinics routinely treated women whom we knew were anti-choice — as in, women who would get an abortion (or one for their daughter — but as one woman assured me, her precious Christian girl just “made a bad decision,” and wasn’t a “whore” like all those other bad women who kill their babies for “birth control”) at our clinic one week — and be out screaming “Babykiller!” at us the next week. Did we go around telling the docs “Hey, we know this patient volunteers with loonies who put you and your family in danger by posting your address on their website?” No, we did not. Because our job was to give excellent reproductive healthcare, including abortion procedures, to all women who made that choice, and not to make distinctions based on their politics.
Even when, unlike Dr. Douchehat here, who is no danger of being murdered by violent defenders of “Obamacare,” their “choices” could (and in some cases, have) led to the bloody deaths of healthcare providers.
So — anyone want to talk about “intolerance” on the left to me some more? We make fun of them — they try to kill us. Wow. That’s so similar!
EconWatcher
This has always baffled me. You have to be able to digest and use a lot of complex information to get through medical school and get your license. How can someone capable of this be a wingnut?
This question hits close to home for me, because I’m from a family made up almost entirely of wingnuts, some of whom have fine educations. How does someone who knows how to read, write, and think pretty well end up a Sean Hannity fan, and think that Ward Churchill represents the opposing point of view?
Sentient Puddle
@Bob K: Those ratings look like they were trolled the morning the story broke. I don’t think they’re worth it to point out.
JackieBinAZ
It’s the retired, cranky “get off my lawn unless you’re mowing it” demographic, the one that keeps re-electing Sheriff Joe Arpaio here. For bitter, old people, this kind of hatred positively energizes.
Randy P
My guess: A guy who wants to be taken seriously as a Real Doctor, since word is starting to get around about his actual doctoring skills. His ratings (see #23) hover around 1.5 on a scale of 1-5, and he earned his degree in Granada, having failed to get admitted into a US medical school.
Now if he really wanted to do this right, he’d wear a pager and have a friend trigger it during the interview. Then he could Look Very Serious on TV while returning the call, and murmur something about being flown to Paris to perform an emergency procedure and having to cut the interview short.
MattF
Not just old men, but old men who either can’t pee or are incontinent. Bad tempered old men.
kommrade reproductive vigor
Tunch sez: I’m in ur intrawebz, chewin on ur html!
Steeplejack
OT: Just watched the President throw out the first pitch before the Phillies-Nationals game. Awesome!
As he came out onto the field there were four wounded servicemen standing at attention, one from each branch of the service. He shook each one by the hand, talked to him for a few moments and gave him something from his pocket. Details presumably to follow. I was tearing up.
Obama was wearing a red Nationals jacket, but when he went to the pitcher’s mound he put on his baseball cap–a White Sox cap! Crowd went wild(er).
I was amazed at how emotional I got at this simple symbolic event. Just proud and glad that Obama is my president.
Obot out.
Violet
Lots of doctors do this, or at least they wear their white coats. It’s usually surgeons who wear scrubs, so if some other doctor is doing it, it’s kind of d-bag-ish, unless he’s actually coming from or going to surgery. ER docs wear them as well, but they deal with so much different stuff coming through their doors, it makes sense. Your average doctor in his own office isn’t wearing scrubs.
There’s a whole status thing with scrubs, length of white coat, footwear, etc. It’s very odd.
Keith
Fox News photoshopped it; the original sign was a series of crude pictographs.
Vince CA
During our pregnancy, we had to make a rather unexpected trip to see a specialist for an amniocentesis on Nov 4 2008 (I spelled it correctly this time, you can look it up on Wikipedia.org). We wore our “We Voted!” stickers b/c we’d voted (by mail, technically but whatever, it’s election day!)
Our dr said that he wasn’t going to ask up who we voted for, and proceeded to be a condescending prick the whole procedure. However, the nurse staff was awesome and very professional.
The dr. though had a very steady hand and was an excellent technician. My wife said she didn’t even feel that awfully thick needle penetrate her belly. Overall, not a bad trip to the dr for an otherwise risky and heart-wrenching procedure.
So this is actually praise for my dr. He did his job even though he unequivocally disagreed with us politically. I guess being a thirty-something pregnant couple meant that we were pinkos? I didn’t know I wore it so obviously in times of stress.
This urologist can suck it. Do your job or make sure your malpractice insurance is paid. This is a quick way to get massively sued. In fact, he posted the ambulance chasers dream on his front door. And he deserves it.
Bob L
Kerry Reid @
You understatement the ability of the human brain for self justification. The Right is doing a good job of taking old news stories out of context and adopting conspiracy theories to come up with their own narrative the Left is murdering them.
Ash Can
OK, the format I’m seeing here is…different.
On topic, why would anyone at all want to go to this guy? He’s obviously a pompous schmuck who doesn’t take his work seriously enough. Politics is evidently more important to him than his career is. Why doesn’t he just retire? Then he can spend all the time he wants being a dick on the intertubes and not inflict his shitheelness on people who come to him for entirely unrelated purposes.
Sad_Dem
If some urologist refused to treat me because of my politics, I’d be pissed.
Eric U.
I still haven’t seen his “fact sheet” that is given out in the waiting room. Someone nearby needs to go pick one up. I wonder if he would email it? Seems like Grayson has a staffer that could go get one, or maybe Grayson himself could go visit since he’s this guy’s congressman
Randy P
Sentient Puddle:
Check these out.
http://www.vitals.com/doctors/Dr_Jack_Cassell.html
It’s been freeped upward since the story broke, and he now averages close to 2.5 out of 4 on that site. But here’s an older report you can scroll down to.
HIS RATINGS BEFORE THE STORY BROKE April 2, 2010
Based on 450 ratings (see all)The Overall Average Patient Rating of Dr. Jack L Cassell, MD when asked is Poor. Dr. Cassell has been reviewed by 450 patients. The rating is 1.0 out of 4 stars.The average wait time to see Dr. Cassell as provided by patient reviews is 50 minutes. By comparison, the national average for a pre-vist wait time of 21 minutes. Dr. Cassell is rated “POOR” in the following areas:Ease of Appointment 1.3Promptness 1.3Courteous Staff 1.3Accurate Diagnosis 1.3Bedside Manner 1.2Spends Time with Me 1.2Follow Up 1.2
Drive By Wisdom
Obama made some real progress with his visit to Afghanistan. Literally turning our allies into enemies.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100405/ap_on_re_as/as_afghanistan
Change you can believe in.
Elie
I am seeing a different format for the comments..also
That said, a Urologist would probably see a fair amount of potential Medicare beneficiaries. In fact, seniors would be about half his business and many of them are on Medicare. Urology is a surgical specialty. Not too many people can afford treatment without private insurance or Medicare. If he has taken a dime from Medicare, he is accountable to that program to provide services to Medicare beneficiaries and follow Medicare access rules. If I am wrong on this, please someone correct me, but I don’t think you can accept payment for some Medicare benefiaries and not others…
Cain
@EconWatcher:
Judging from his ratings, it looks like he let himself go and all he does is read Redstate and michellemalkin.com most of the time instead of doing the work at hand. You can get into that state once you start become lazy, don’t keep up on your education, and read trash.
cain
ChrisS
well, that does it. I’m voting for Palin.
I’ve had just about enough from Mr. Obama. It’s about time we got someone with common sense in that office, by gawd.
Little Dreamer
@ Silver Owl (14):
__
Oh, why not? Priests and ministers have been doing this for years now.
/snark
Zifnab
A lot of reasons, I’m sure. For one, you’re not the same person who came out of college twenty years later. You suffer a different set of problems and you get exposed to different information. That can change your perspective.
For another, you don’t have to be a genius to get through college – or even med school. I know plenty of college kids who worked through the greek system, earned passing (sometimes stellar) grades, and came out just as ideologically conservative as when they went in. Those people are usually the “Daddy said vote this way” crowd. They vote family, not politics.
Chat Noir
I have family members who prove this statement to be true.
Little Dreamer
Nice Link ChrisS, it leads to nowhere.
Fix it or shut up!
mr. whipple
Say Happy Birthday to Michele Bachman!
http://www.rumproast.com/index.php/site/comments/happy_birtherday_dear_michele_bachmann/
Ash Can
@ Drive By Wisdom: A little friendly advice — if you actually read the article to which you link, it can prevent you from looking like a complete idiot. Just sayin’.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@EconWatcher #30:
If you ever figure out the answer to this, put it in a bottle, borrow a time machine, and take it back to Germany circa 1930. University professors and students were (on a per-capita basis) some of the biggest supporters of you-know-who. I don’t know the answer either – if I had to guess it would be that a lot of folks with higher education are vulnerable to the need for some sort of intellectual framework or systemic worldview with which to understand the chaos around us. “Shit happens” isn’t good enough for them. That makes them easy prey for political charlatans.
trollhattan
The headline on this story I’d like to see: “Pi-pi Doc Goes Galt.”
Has Herr or Frau Doktor Reynolds weighed in on Herr Doktor Cassell’s patriotism level? I won’t know what to think until I’ve
heard from themreceived my instructions.clonecone
@Elie
Here’s a good summary of participation options for doctors.
http://www.aafp.org/online/en/home/practicemgt/mcareoptions.printerview.html
Huggy Bear
I think a bunch of people should schedule appointments and not show up for them. Then they should call the office and tell the staff that they got to the door, but when they saw the sign they left. A couple of those a day should take the piss out of him.
Ash Can
@ Little Dreamer: Psst — that’s not ChrisS’s link.
Todd
Couldn’t someone just lie to him?
yellowdog
I’ve looked in several places and as far as I can tell, this guy Cassel is NOT Board Certified. That means he has not meant certain standards (testing and continuing education) established by the American Board of Urology. It is perfectly legal to call yourself a urologist (or brain surgeon, for that matter) without Board certification, but it is a professional standard, established by your peers, not any governmental organization. Some insurance programs will not include physicians who are not board certified or board eligible.
I also noted that this guy is only affiliated with one local, rather small (204 beds) hospital. Other urologists in the area seem to have around three hospital affiliations. Again, nothing wrong with that, but it kinda makes you think, doesn’t it?
Bubblegum Tate
@KerryReid
Osprey
@ Drive by Jizdom.
Is that you, Glenn Greenwald???
Little Dreamer
@ Ash Can:
The link provided by Drive By Wisdom (45) was more complete.
Did ChrisS blockquote the link including the HTML? I’ve never been able to do that before. The HTML gets lost if it is copied and pasted.
For the link to be there, I think ChrisS had to reconstruct the link, and it wasn’t complete.
mr. whipple
Urine the minority. There’s a vas deferens between you and me.
Little Dreamer
@yellowdog:
Cassel is just a believer of that whole “deregulatin’ utopia” idear.
Little Dreamer
Now THAT is funny!
Camchuck
OT-
John McCain, “I never considered myself a maverick”.
At least he didn’t deny he was a POW, yet.
clonecone
@yellowdog
He’s in my provider network and my directory says he’s board certified.
Little Dreamer
Randy P: So what you’re saying is people are rating Cassel based on his ideology and not having been a patient at his practice?
Am I getting that right?
freelancer
Damn the close tags, full speed ahead!
batgirl
I personally know of a case where a doctor refused to treat a patient (the mom of a friend of mine) because she is Arab-American. It was an absolutely humiliating experience. He even had the gall to charge her for the appointment. They filed a complaint with the hospital he works with.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Camchuck #68:
We have always been at war with East Maverickstan.
Randy P
@Little Dreamer#70: No, I’m saying that before the story broke it appears he was getting universally poor ratings from patients at his practice. Based on his medical skills.
But since the story broke, he’s been getting tons of ideological ratings as well. A few were of the “shame on you for your unethical practices” and a bunch more were top ratings saying “hooray for your courage and that will show those damned liberals” types.
The ones from patients of his practice are now no longer available at that website, having been scrolled off the page by the ideological ones since April 2. You can only see that summary I quoted.
Elie
Clonecone@57 — Exactly!
If he is a PAR provider, he can’t just change that. I of course do not know that he is, but Medicare does. As I said, the people who see a Urologist are typically older males and its costly treatment so very very few are seen either without insurance or Medicare. Most retirees who have trouble with their prostates, etc are no longer full time employees receiving health care benefits from employers and are more likely to be Medicare benificiaries. He sounds like a jerk doc, but if he is Participating, he cannot refuse care to any other Medicare benificiaries without financial consequences. It would be very unpleasant for the doc to receive Federal investigators in his office going through his financial records.
Little Dreamer
Yes, Randy – that’s what I meant!
So, the wingnut who has never used his services now feels it is incumbent upon him/her to rate the good doctor based on his politics.
Wow, wonders never cease to amaze me.
The Populist
Wow, good work Doctor Douchebag. If he wants to make a point he should use his own brain to lay out his issues with HCR in a take home instead of shoving GOP talking points down people’s throats.
On top of that, he has the right to complain and act idiotic. I usually question the judgement, though, of people who post such vitriolic temper tantrums in their businesses. Business is business. I see a posting like that I will go in, say my peace and find a new doctor. If I saw his handouts with no temper tantrum posted, I’d at least read it, agree or disagree, and shrug. There are ways of making a point without being a fucking child about it.
As the quote at the end of the first article said, the GOP should change their names to the Sore Loser Party indeed!
Danton
It’s usually the proctologists who are right-wing nutjobs.
bemused
Typical of R’s no matter what income bracket they are in. If it’s a Dem policy, they don’t have to know anything about it. They know they hate it, it’s terrible & that’s that.
The Populist
@Little Dreamer:
Yep, seems we are headed this way. Gee, these fucks sure like picking the bits of American history that work for their argument but I promise this…none of the founding fathers punished those who may have had some love for the king in England. Royalists got elected but still ultimately supported the USA. These nutjobs are all worked up because they ran the wrong people against Obama.
The GOP probably would have lost no matter WHO ran against Obama but picking Palin sure as hell didn’t help McCain any.
The Populist
@ Bemused
Yet they never recognize many of their useless ideas are worse for this country.
How did de-regulation work out for us again? Oh yes, the rich got richer while small businesses get pummeled.
Sadly, if America gives these idiots control in 2012, they better realize that it will be more of the same. Tax cuts for the rich and de-regulation that helps NO-ONE but allows companies to kill free markets by squeezing out competitors.
bemused
the populist@81:
It doesn’t matter. Liberals lie. Faux, Rush, etc. are fair & balanced & always tell them the truth. If loyal R’s started to let itty, bitty niggling doubt creep in that would upset the whole apple cart. They’d have to question everything they’ve believed all their lives. That’s terrifying to them which is what I think triggers a lot of their incoherent rage.
Little Dreamer
@ The Populist:
If they regain power in 2012, I’m hoping they take us off the cliff quickly rather than slowly.
Quite honestly though, if I were a middle of the road person who never reads a blog and I saw the stories on tv and the actions of these crazy fucks, I’d be thinking “no way am I voting them back in again”. Let’s hope that’s true for a majority of people out there. I still believe it is.
BTW, didn’t Sarahdipity call McInsane a maverick again recently?
Maxwel
Can an MD do this and stay an MD?
Royston Vasey
@Randy P #33
Is that Granada, Spain, or Grenada, the island nation that was so deserving of a full scale invasion?
RV
Royston Vasey
@Maxwel
Only in MD ;-)
Origuy
@Royston Vasey#85
St George’s is on the Caribbean island of Grenada. I wonder if he was in school there in 1983?
maus
I don’t know, that activity sounds pretty Republican to me.
SiubhanDuinne
@jeffreyw: Mmmm, whipped cream that looks like an old bearded Greek philosopher!
Wolfdaughter
There is a Jack L. Cassell in Mount Dora, FL, specialty urology, who’s board-certified. It’s not particularly far from Orlando, so probably the same guy.
Dang! I was hoping he wasn’t board-certified. I visited the website for the American Board of Medical Specialties and created an account so I could look him up, BTW.
I hope my Florida friends have been following this and if they have been patients of his, will start going to another urologist instead.
A physician’s political convictions are his or her own business, and of course physicians have the right to their convictions. But this guy’s actions are simply beyond the pale. I wonder if the Florida Board of Medical Examiners can discipline him?
SRW1
I understood that there are people who make an awesome living benefiting from trickle-down economics. Just wasn’t aware that for some of them the trickle-down was true that literally.
Btw, I’d say this thread was a close call between trollhattan @56 and mr. whipple @65, but in the end I’d give it to mr. whipple on style. If only because trollhattan was missing the appropriate level of deference and called Herr Professor Reynolds ‘Herr Doktor Reynolds’. That kind of slip in the B note is inexcusable.