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talkpoliticsDuring 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.
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.
(no subject)
Date: 17/12/10 20:09 (UTC)Yes. The bottom line. Very concrete indeed. These are for-profit institutions. Therefore, their primary concern is not the well-being of the consumer (or would-be consumer) but how much money they stand to make.
To the health insurance companies, life-saving medical care is a commodity. A luxury commodity.
Sick, poor people are not profitable. Therefore, their interests are most likely to be met by NONprofit agencies.
lom: Okay so, I was being facetious when I said "possessed by satan".
No, you'd merely have been "facetious" if you'd been using the term "possessed by satan" as a way of exaggerating your OWN opinion. When you ascribe that exaggeration to someone else's opinion in order to paint their opinion as unreasonable, another word applies.
lom: This is because you keep making emotional appeals about people dying for profit....
I keep talking about denying people life-saving healthcare like it's a BAD thing.
Paft; your statement about treatment being available is meaningless. Nobody is arguing that treatment doesn't exist.
lom: It's not meaningless, because this is a key symptom of the problem. Since, this is a discussion about health care, I'm presenting alternative reform possibilities (which have been suggested by conservatives). I believe some of these ideas would do a better job in the long run getting more people affordable access to treatment.
Have the private insurance companies stepped up to the plate for those many, many people who can't afford their premiums? Or those who have pre-existing conditions?
lom: I think that this kind of thing is going to keep happening, more and more, as federal and state governments continue to expand their control on health care, while they go deeper into debt.
Please. This is not a case where someone was backed into a corner and forced to make these cuts. Covering those transplants in Arizona would require a miniscule amount of money compared to other expenditures. Arizona has been the recipient of a great deal of stimulus dollars that could easily have paid for these transplants.
lom: I don't care what letter she has next to her name, I think that it should never be up to people like Jan Brewer in the first place.
But it should be up to insurance executives out to make lots of money?
lom: There have been similar things going on in Hawaii.
The governor of Hawaii recently rescinded the Medicaid coverage of low income people in line for badly needed transplants? When did this happen?
lom: This is all the more reason to put the power back into the private sector, in the hands of people and their doctors, IMHO.
Are private insurance companies stepping up to the plate for those Arizona transplant patients?
(no subject)
Date: 17/12/10 21:57 (UTC)But gee, they didn't. What a surprise. And yet, you want to trust government even more with this track record? If they could have done it so easily whey didn't they? Where is the evidence government cares so much for saving lives? Seems to me they are worried more about the state budget, their bottom line, power, and votes. The only people who really give a damn about health care are health care professionals working in the industry and their patients/customers. Insurance companies are in the business of selling insurance. Politicians are in the business of politics. Neither of them are in the business of saving lives. They are both middle men. So easy for them to make sweeping decisions like this because they are not directly effected. Upper class politicians get some of the best health care benefits in the country, while the working middle class pay for them through the nose. The rules, of course, will never apply to them.
The governor of Hawaii recently rescinded the Medicaid coverage of low income people in line for badly needed transplants? When did this happen?
No, they have been making (or were attempting to make) health care cuts. If you google Hawaii and health care cuts, you can probably find some news articles.
Are private insurance companies stepping up to the plate for those Arizona transplant patients?
If they were allowed unrestricted access to the free market, I bet you would see some competition popping up among them. Eventually they would start competing over rates, and offering deals to set themselves apart. Paying customers would flock away from those offering crap, and towards those offering the better services...instead of being limited in choosing the lesser of 2 or 3 evils in their state. There would need to be a lot of deregulation for this to happen, though, and it wouldn't happen over night. But it would happen. That would be step 1.
(no subject)
Date: 18/12/10 18:35 (UTC)lom: But gee, they didn't. What a surprise.
"They?" More like "she." And no, it's not a surprise, given Jan Brewer's nasty political philosophy. It's similar to someone who opposes the notion of a publicly funded fire department being put in charge of one, defunding it to the point where it can no longer afford fire engines, ladders, and hoses, and then triumphantly pointing at its subsequent inability to fight fires as a failure of public emergency services.
lom: And yet, you want to trust government even more with this track record?
So let's see if I understand you correctly -- You're claiming that the consistent track record of health insurance companies murderously screwing over consumers and the sick should be ignored in favor of deregulating health insurance companies even more and hoping that they'll miraculously figure out a way of gouging profit out of the poor and sick that will actually benefit the poor and sick. At the same time, we're to accept this instance of a governor -- who is HOSTILE to the concept of publicly funded healthcare and has plainly deliberately sabotaged Medicaid funding -- as the norm in social services and evidence of government incompetence.
Does that sum it up?
I googled Hawaii and health cuts and could find nothing comparable to what Brewer has done. There are just the usual disputes over what and who should be covered, (Mental healthcare, preventative medicine, the status of COFA residents) and while those are important, they are not the equivalent of referring "heart transplants" as "optional" and informing citizens that they can't have the operation that would save their lives unless they pony up half a mill.
lom: If they were allowed unrestricted access to the free market, I bet you would see some competition popping up among them. Eventually they would start competing over rates, and offering deals to set themselves apart...
First of all, I'm truly curious about what "deals" would maximize these company's profits while actually benefitting sick people who have little or no money to pay these companies, and little likelihood of ever getting any.
Second, you're asking everyone to flatly ignore history. Back during the industrial revolution, companies didn't need to bother with any of that pesky government oversight over product and worker safety, child labor, and living sages. The result was not them being "free" to treat their employees or consumers fairly. Quite the contrary. They maximized their profits by paying their employees as little as possible, working them into exhaustion, and tossing them aside when they became too sick or injured to continue. "Men are cheaper than shingles" was one railroad supervisor's response to the idea of insulating a building to cut down on instances of pneumonia among his employees. Children were worked long hours, and often maimed to the point where they were rendered unfit for employment as adults. Adulterated food was the norm among manufacturers.
Why should we bet human lives on the notion that this rule of the marketplace would magically vanish if health insurance companies were given a free hand?