Death Panels? What Death Panels?

[dreadfulpenny81.livejournal.com]

During the heated debate last summer over the proposed health care legislation, Sarah Palin and Barack Obama kept bringing to the media the phrase 'death panels', groups of people that would decide whether or not to "pull the plug on Grandma". While Palin was misguided in her analysis (as she was trying to say that end-of-life care or the living will system was the 'death panel' when it actually wasn't), she may not have been entirely off-base.

Stories have been featured recently through several media outlets of patients in Arizona and Indiana who have been denied life-saving surgeries in the past several weeks and months due to cuts in state Medicaid budgets. In Indiana, a six-month old infant named Seth Petreikis has complete DiGeorge syndrome. A surgery that was deemed "experimental" by Medicaid was denied to him, but the company that manages Indiana's Medicaid program has offered to pay for the surgery themselves. [Source]

In Arizona, 98 people who were already approved for transplants were later told they couldn't receive the surgeries because of recent cuts to Arizona's Medicaid budget. One man was set to receive a new liver, which was donated to him by a friend who'd recently passed away. Because he couldn't pay for the $200,000 surgery, the liver went to another patient. [Source] The reason for this? On October 1, 2010, the state of Arizona removed transplants from a list of medical services that can be funded through the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System (AHCCCS). Keith Olbermann is asking viewers of his show Countdown to donate in the hopes of funding the transplants. Meanwhile, Democrats in Arizona are now using the 'death panel' analogy as an attack against Gov. Jan Brewer and Arizona Republicans, who agreed to Medicaid cuts to balance their budget, despite protests from Democrats. [Source]

The 'death panels' Palin referred to have little to do with federal government action and more to do with state government blunders. There should be some legislation on the table to mandate organ transplant surgeries be paid for through all health care providers, public and private.Transplant boards are still necessary to sort through the amount of transplant candidates but at least someone who's promised a chance at renewed life wouldn't have to worry about that promise being taken away.

Comments

Re: No such things as a free organ transplant

[rasilio.livejournal.com]

That's funny I don't remember voting for medicare adjudicators.

Oh that's right, they are not elected positions and as they are protected by a union the elected officials can't even fire them.

I mean really, the idea that a Civil Servant is actually beholden to the public. Next thing you know you'll be telling us that corporations hate regulations.

Re: No such things as a free organ transplant

[chron-job.livejournal.com]

Do you cote for cops?

Yet they still have life and death powers, and one hopes that are accountable.

Re: No such things as a free organ transplant

[chron-job.livejournal.com]

sorry, "that they"

Re: No such things as a free organ transplant

[torpidai.livejournal.com]

sorry, "that they"

rly? to whom might they be accountable? here they happen to be a bunch of murderous blackmailing thugs with the inability to solve crime, but an extraordinary ability to inflict huge fines on motorists (Especially those with "Older" cars) yet still so few lose their jobs :S

Re: No such things as a free organ transplant

[sealwhiskers.livejournal.com]

British way of dealing with health care is not the only (nor the best) NHS way..but still, having been in hospitals in both UK and US, I'd still pick UK, sadly. Just one month ago I had a royal mess to clean up with my insurance company in the US, from a pretty normal procedure, it was truly draining and I could only imagine what could have happened had it been something a little more complicated.

Insurance companies don't fear losing your business, no matter what the libertarian voice says, they simply don't fear anything and let their lower employees do their dirty work. They need to minimize costs in any way possible and maximize gain. The bureaucracy to do this is deliberately complex and erroneous, basically meant to take people's money and only very reluctantly give anything back, many times not.

Re: No such things as a free organ transplant

[torpidai.livejournal.com]

basically meant to take people's money and only very reluctantly give anything back, many times not.

They'll find that a lot easier once they have your money too I guess :)

To my mind Insurance is only really needed because people can't or won't save, commercialisation of health isn't too hot an idea either, but then again, could you trust that sort of cash with your government, and still expect it to not be spent in another area?

Re: No such things as a free organ transplant

[sealwhiskers.livejournal.com]

I think in practicality, health care procedures would often be too costly for a mainstream citizen to handle alone, that's why the pooling of many in monthly fees (as in the case of insurance companies) or taxes (as in NHS) are needed. I've read up on real numbers for such simple things as ambulance rides to costly surgery (not to mention lengthy treatments for serious ailments), and it's too much unless you either pool in some way, or belong to a fairly wealthy class of citizens, beyond upper middle class.
In most cases it's after all just a matter of time before a citizen gets ill, and only a matter chance or genetics how bad or what kind of illness it is.

In regards to my personal story and where I grew up, I have really good experiences with government health care (but it was neither the UK nor the US), but in general, I feel that I'd actually always have a better shot at putting pressure on a wrong done by the government than by a wrong done by a big company. Taxes are after all the best argument a citizen has, to put pressure on governments. Fees, divided into a certain amount of big companies simply don't have the same impact. And companies can tamper with your rights easier, there will always be loopholes and fine print and good lawyers to bring you down, if need be.

Re: No such things as a free organ transplant

[torpidai.livejournal.com]

I think in practicality, health care procedures would often be too costly for a mainstream citizen to handle alone,

Now why would that be? how could that happen? it's simply because life, or more to the point, death, has become too emotive a subject, why? So that the pharmacorps and hospitals can charge a fortune and expext someone to come up with the money for treatment one way or another!

Someone here is getting bent over a barrel, the equipment I've seen in hospitals is often real cheap crap (certainly the monitoring equipment I've seen) yet I'll bet it's been sold to them for a fortune! £10,000 I was quoted for an MRI scan 10 years back, and I'd love to know exactly where that figure came from, because 1 Doctor, one Nurse and 10 minutes of a machines time is a tad excessive (IMHO) and hell nowadays they use them to charge te old folks £2k+ a throw for a more in depth "healthcheck" in rder that they can charge them much more for any BS problems they can point out to the senile ole buggers on "a magical image from inside your body", we can fix that for you sir, bring your credit card with you next visit hu?

Re: No such things as a free organ transplant

[sealwhiskers.livejournal.com]

Equipment/machines and work competence, along with other things in a working clinic/hospital are actually very costly things. Add to that the ginormous amont of people needing services.

Re: No such things as a free organ transplant

[torpidai.livejournal.com]

Add to that the ginormous amont of people needing services.

Too much is spent on navel gazers according to my own GP, and poor advise when it comes to tech purchases as we've seen in British NHS buildings recently :S

Re: No such things as a free organ transplant

[sealwhiskers.livejournal.com]

Even that taken out of account, the tab is big, regardless of country.

Re: No such things as a free organ transplant

[rasilio.livejournal.com]

In theory they are accountable. In practice they get away with things that should land them in jail all the time. Further often the only way to actually hold them accountable is through the work of investigative journalism because the politicians are more often than not beholden to the police union for their election and even when they are not the only real control they have over the operation of the police departments is that they appoint the chief of police. Everything below that is protected from the political process.

Re: No such things as a free organ transplant

[mrsilence.livejournal.com]

So wouldn't that argue that investigate journalism would serve the same purpose with respect to keeping other civil servants accountable?

If you're arguing that the accountability of police is insufficient (which I wouldn't necessarily disagree) but don't think that it is so bad that they should not be entrusted with the power of life and death, then doesn't the same argument hold for other civil servants with similar powers?