Florida Paper Publishes Doctor's 'If You Voted for Obama, Seek Care Elsewhere' Sign

April 2nd, 2010 1:49 PM

UPDATE AT END OF POST WITH VIDEO of local Florida television news coverage of the story.

The Orlando Sentinel on Friday bravely published a notice created by a Florida doctor advising his Obama-supporting patients to use another physician.

"If you voted for Obama … seek urologic care elsewhere. Changes to your healthcare begin right now, not in four years," read the sign Dr. Jack Cassell posted on the window of his Mount Dora office.

The Sentinel marvelously offered a fair and balanced report on Cassell's ObamaCare protest without suggesting the good doctor had to be a racist to feel this way (picture of full sign below the fold, h/t JWF):

A doctor who considers the national health-care overhaul to be bad medicine for the country posted a sign on his office door telling patients who voted for President Barack Obama to seek care "elsewhere."

"I'm not turning anybody away — that would be unethical," Dr. Jack Cassell, 56, a Mount Dora urologist and a registered Republican opposed to the health plan, told the Orlando Sentinel on Thursday. "But if they read the sign and turn the other way, so be it." [...]

Cassell, who has practiced medicine in GOP-dominated Lake County since 1988, said he doesn't quiz his patients about their politics, but he also won't hide his disdain for the bill Obama signed and the lawmakers who passed it.

In his waiting room, Cassell also has provided his patients with photocopies of a health-care timeline produced by Republican leaders that outlines "major provisions" in the health-care package. The doctor put a sign above the stack of copies that reads: "This is what the morons in Washington have done to your health care. Take one, read it and vote out anyone who voted for it."

Cassell, whose lawyer wife, Leslie Campione, has declared herself a Republican candidate for Lake County commissioner, said three patients have complained, but most have been "overwhelmingly supportive" of his position.

"They know it's not good for them," he said.

Cassell, who previously served as chief of surgery at Florida Hospital Waterman in Tavares, said a patient's politics would not affect his care for them, although he said he would prefer not to treat people who support the president.

"I can at least make a point," he said.

Yes he can.

Refreshing to see an anti-Obama news report without the seemingly requisite implications of racism, homophobia, and extremism so prevalent whenever anyone has the audacity to show dissent against the current administration.

It will be very interesting to see how this gets reported by the rest of the media in the coming days.

*****Update: WFTV in Florida filed the following report (h/t HotAirPundit):