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Unfortunately, in 2007 America, when someone else is paying the bill, the choice is not 100% yours. That’s the fact. I have a friend who has late stage lung cancer. Her insurance will not pay for an expensive new treatment that MIGHT lengthen her life. THESE DECISIONS ARE MADE EVERY SINGLE DAY. If insurance, or the government paid for every chance to keep the body alive, you know our country would be broke. That’s the downside of modern medicine.

Why wouldn’t the insurance companies pay up? They certainly cashed all the checks that paid for the policy./naive

The federal government should, IMO, get involved in mandating payment for insurance claims. Anything less seems, to me, to be fraud on the part of the insurance company/ies.

My condolences/best wishes to your friend.

Well, Hildy, one person on here agrees with you. I work with sick and dying children every day. Currently we are caring for a child with a degenerative neurological disease that can only lead to any early death. All of this childs muscles are slowly wasting away. When it became impossible for the child to eat, she was subjected to surgery to place a gastric tube. Now she is losing control of muscles that coordinate breathing and swallowing. The next step is to place a tracheostomy. The family has consistently been unable to care for her at home. She recently spent over three months at the hospital only because there were issues regarding who would care for here when she leaves. She has no control over her body at all. She has no purposeful movements. She has no hope for a “recovery”. This condition will only get worse, and she will eventually die. The staff members have tried to explain this to the family (the ones who leave her alone at a hospital for months at a time because they don’t want to care for her - and, yes, she is on Medicaid) to no avail. They want us to continue to provide care for her forever. Once she is trached, she will probably never go home, and will be one of the numerous kids that live at the hospital because we have no place to send them. Now, we can keep kids like this alive indefinitely, but should we?