Would you let someone's dad die to save 75 cents?

[Onlooker]

That's what they're doing in Arizona.

__________________

http://bobsnewheart.wordpress.com/2010/11/23/arizona-governor-no-transplants-for-medicaid-patients-the-poor/

As of October 1, 2010 Arizona Medicaid stopped covering heart transplants for non-ischemic cardiomyopathy, lung transplants, pancreatic transplants, some bone marrow transplants and liver transplants for hepatitis C patients. That means that about 98 people who had previously been approved for transplants will not be eligible unless they can raise the money on their own. Transplants can cost from $150 thousand to $500 thousand which does not include the anti-rejection drugs transplant patients must take for the rest of their lives.

Arizona will save approximately $5 million by canceling Medicaid organ transplant coverage. So — not only have the state’s politicians decided to let 98 people die, they have also decided that human life in the state is worth exactly $51,020.41. Don’t be surprised if in the future some life insurance company uses that figure to attempt to reduce jury awards in cases of personal injury and death.

http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=uspopulation&met=population&idim=state:04000&dl=en&hl=en&q=population+of+arizona

Population of Arizona: 6,600,000
__________________

$5 million/6,600,000=`75 cents

The the right wing could justify the early death of someone so they can keep an extra 3 quarters in their pocket, shows how badly miserliness and avarice have corrupted their sense of responsibility and of human decency.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. ...

:cry:

[Octafish]

2. We live in gangster times.

No one should die because we can't "afford" their care.

If we can afford two illegal, immoral, unnecessary and disastrous wars, we can afford medical care.

[MiniMe]

3. Damn death panels!!

[Kennah]

4. America is partying like it's 1789

[WCGreen]

5. Well stated...

K & R

[Radical Activist]

6. This is why single-payer won't be the fairy tale solution people imagine it to be.

Debates over decisions like this will happen all the time. We need to leave people the option of single-payer or non-profit co-op insurance.

[Demoiselle]

14. Do you mean that Canada's health insurance never pays for transplants?

[Radical Activist]

20. Does Canada have debates about what should be covered?

[TheBigotBasher]

19. Sorry

some of the most advanced transplants happen in the UK, provided free at the point of use by the good old NHS.

[Radical Activist]

21. Does the UK have debates about what should be covered?

Yes.

[TheBigotBasher]

22. No matter what system you have

you will always have health econometrics. The NHS will spend £105 billion this financial year and from that Doctors, not some Insurance agent will make a decision on treatment priorities based on clinical need and not a profit and loss account.

Should you wish to have private treatment, private health insurance is available and because they compete against free at the point of use they charge much less than the equivalent insurance in the US (with no co-pays).

[Kennah]

7. When does it stop

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKOK4EnOcE0

[nadinbrzezinski]

8. Paging Mrs. Palin....

this is a REAL death Panel.

[gratuitous]

9. Who's dad are we talking about?

This is indeed a shameful blight on our country nowadays. Everything is reduced to money, and if something costs, it must not only justify the outlay, it has to make a profit, and that right quick. Education and health care are prime examples. Yes, it costs money to educate our children, and that expenditure isn't immediately realized unless you're willing to see that today's wage earners who are funding the system were yesterday's students. Today's students will be tomorrow's wage earners, funding the system for the students of tomorrow.

In like manner, regular access to health care costs money, but the savings down the road are enormous. Today's heart transplant candidate might have been spared with regular annual check-ups and monitoring so that when heart disease first began, treatment and therapy could have been applied sooner rather than later, saving the need for a transplant later. Part of the problem, naturally, is the speculative nature of whether regular medical care could help in any particular instance; but it's undeniable that the effects over a large population will drive down costs considerably.

We're also victimized by forces that want to demonize any notion of a common good or a shared risk/expense/benefit. Everyone's on his own, and nobody should expect help from anybody. Toward that end, government of the people is recast as the enemy of personal freedom and choice (unless those same people want everyone to be forced into the same choice, then government-imposed conformity is required to stop all that damn flag-burning or whatever). And so, to save me six bits, someone dies.

[timo]

10. hell yes I would

The asshole dad that used to beat my wife and her mom and brother....you bet, hell if I wouldnt go to jail for it I would kill him myself!!

[jberryhill]

11. Why? Does Cheney's daughter need 75 cents?

[dkf]

12. I'm not sure it is so much about $.75 as it is about success rates.

Specifically Arizona made the decision that the low success rate of liver transplants for people with hepatitis C which tended to result in the new liver also becoming infected, should not be funded.

In an era of shortages of organs and funding this may be the type of decisions we will make, especially under a taxpayer funded system.

I was watching an episode of "outlaw" where a kid in foster care couldn't qualify for a transplant because the foster care system doesn't generally provide the after surgery care needed to support a transplant. The episode was eye opening and depressing. There may be more to this than just plain funding as society makes decisions on who gets these organs.

[KamaAina]

15. How does that apply to the heart transplants they've refused?

:shrug:

[Baalath]

17. I think you are exactly right.

It is likely not just a matter of money, but a matter of where to place organs that are in short supply and that demands considering the success rate of the current system.

[Onlooker]

23. Then the argument should be that funding needs to be increased

You're describing a scenario (at the foster home) involving inadequate funding possibly costing a kid years of his life. I think the better solution is to increase the funding. There are certainly complex issues involved, given the shortage of organs, but in a civilized and wealthy society, money is not really an obstacle; avarice and selfishness is.

[bobbolink]

13. "human life in the state is worth exactly $51,020.41." The amount is much less for poor folk.

We're on the "last chance" table.

[KamaAina]

16. Even more shocking

some of the people they're throwing under the bus are Caucasian this time.

[w8liftinglady]

18. Lung transplants,at least in Texas,are historically caucasion children with cystic fibrosis

They received the double lung transplants.Adults received the single lungs.Most of the kids were medicaid here(since their illnesses had taken all their family's savings) It is very painful for the patients and their families both pre- and post-op.I know,because I would help with post-op biopsies on these kids.It's a tough choice.I'm glad that there are organ donors for these people.I can only imagine what it will be like if medicaid is withdrawn.

http://www.cff.org/treatments/LungTransplantation/#When_is_it_time_for_a_lung_transplant?_What_is_involved_in_the_evalutation_process?