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Girl dies while awaiting liver transplant (US)
KABC Los Angeles ^ | 20 December 2007 | N/A

Posted on 12/21/2007 4:37:17 AM PST by Erik Latranyi

WESTWOOD -- A Northridge teenager awaiting a liver transplant died Thursday after she was pulled off of life support.

CIGNA Insurance Company initially refused to cover the cost of the transplant for Natalee Sarkisian, saying the surgery was too experimental.

On Thursday, friends, family and members of a nurses association held a protest outside CIGNA headquarters in Glendale, urging the insurance company to reconsider. During the protest, Natalee's mother got word CIGNA had changed its mind and would make an exception for Natalee's surgery.

But the decision came too late for Natalee. Just after six o'clock tonight, her condition worsened. Natalee's family took her off life support and she passed away.

Attorneys for the Sarkisian family may pursue legal action against CIGNA HealthCare.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Extended News; Government
KEYWORDS: cigna; communismkills; healthcare; pulledofflifesupport; starkravingsocialism
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I posted this because it is a hot story over on DU.

The liberals are carrying on about how we need socialized medicine based on this example while ignoring the thousands of similar stories from countries that have universal healthcare.

1 posted on 12/21/2007 4:37:19 AM PST by Erik Latranyi
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To: Erik Latranyi

Insurance companies suck! Liver transplants are not experimental.

Socialized medicine is not the cure.


2 posted on 12/21/2007 4:39:51 AM PST by driftdiver
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To: Erik Latranyi
The liberals are carrying on about how we need socialized medicine based on this example ...

Perhaps they wish this so more people can die.

This is just such a sad story though. It goes to show that the insurance industry does need reform... but going socialist is not the answer.

3 posted on 12/21/2007 4:41:46 AM PST by pnh102
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To: Erik Latranyi

Under the British or Canadian system, there never would have been a question of a transplant. They would have just taken the girl off life support immediately.

Unless, of course, she was designated as a “national treasure”, as they do in the UK. Specially designated People Who Matter (PWMs) get access to all sorts of treatment that would never be allowed to the common people.

There has never been a Socialist system devised, anywhere, that did not include a way for the elite to escape the ministrations of their benevolent creation.


4 posted on 12/21/2007 4:43:22 AM PST by gridlock ("I'd gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today" -- J. Wellington Wimpy)
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To: Erik Latranyi

And these DUmmies think that the government will do better in situations such as this? The same government can’t issue passports in a timely manner, but they would be in charge of issuing approval for transplants and other complex medical procedures. What area of our lives that the government has taken over has improved over the past 50 years? I can’t think of one.


5 posted on 12/21/2007 4:46:01 AM PST by kittymyrib
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To: gridlock
There has never been a Socialist system devised, anywhere, that did not include a way for the elite to escape the ministrations of their benevolent creation.

It usually entails a trip to the USA and paying cash.

6 posted on 12/21/2007 4:47:29 AM PST by pnh102
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To: Erik Latranyi; All

So you have to ask - without knowing the whole story - why didn’t the parents just go ahead and do it, and worry about the bills later ?

Plenty of time to take the insurance company to court after the transplant is done...


7 posted on 12/21/2007 4:48:03 AM PST by cinives (On some planets what I do is considered normal.)
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To: Erik Latranyi
During the protest, Natalee's mother got word CIGNA had changed its mind and would make an exception for Natalee's surgery... But the decision came too late for Natalee. Just after six o'clock tonight, her condition worsened. Natalee's family took her off life support and she passed away.

Call me a cynic, but something doesn't look right about this case. The parents are holding protests demanding treatment that the insurance company says is experimental and probably ineffective. Then when they win, they immediately take the girl off life support.

It could be coincidence, or it could be that the eeeeeeeevil CIGNA was right all along, and the treatment was not appropriate in this particular case, and faced with the prospect of futile surgery, the parents made the rational choice.

Since we have no additional information, it is impossible to say which is true.

Oh, wait a minute, now the family is talking lawsuit... Hmmmmm...

8 posted on 12/21/2007 4:48:56 AM PST by gridlock ("I'd gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today" -- J. Wellington Wimpy)
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To: Erik Latranyi

So, why didn’t the family just tell the insurance company where to get off and work out some way to pay for the transplant out of pocket? Take care of the child first and then worry about costs. You know any jury would award the child a nice lifetime trust from the insurance company.


9 posted on 12/21/2007 4:50:24 AM PST by mtbopfuyn (I think the border is kind of an artificial barrier - San Antonio councilwoman Patti Radle)
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To: cinives
So you have to ask - without knowing the whole story - why didn’t the parents just go ahead and do it, and worry about the bills later ?

Because even on Medical, there have been cases of doctors/surgeons/gas passers demanding payment UP FRONT. If they don't have the money in hand, the parents are basically SOL.
10 posted on 12/21/2007 4:51:34 AM PST by OCCASparky (Steely-Eyed Killer of the Deep)
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To: mtbopfuyn

Out of pocket? Liver transplants cost several hundred thousand dollars.


11 posted on 12/21/2007 4:52:18 AM PST by Fresh Wind (Scrape the bottom, vote for Rodham!)
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I wonder what was “experimental” about a liver transplant?


12 posted on 12/21/2007 4:52:44 AM PST by evad
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To: pnh102
It usually entails a trip to the USA and paying cash.

If you are a Person Who Matters (PWM) in Canada, the Canadian government will pay for you to have treatment in the United States that they do not have the ability to provide themselves. PWMs can always count on adequate care. It's the PWDM who wind up dying waiting for a simple procedure.

Of course, one wonders where the Canadians will go for care once the United States health care system has been destroyed along their model.

13 posted on 12/21/2007 4:52:51 AM PST by gridlock ("I'd gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today" -- J. Wellington Wimpy)
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To: driftdiver
Insurance companies suck!

The Free Republic understatement of the day! I'm a pilot. My experience with insurance companies as far as airplanes go is that they really are no longer insurance companies at all. They are law firms masquerading as insurance companies....

14 posted on 12/21/2007 4:54:46 AM PST by Thermalseeker (Debates? Those weren't no stinkin' debates!)
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To: evad

Probably not the transplant itself, but whether a transplant would actually correct the condition.

Just guessing, however, since there are a lot of missing details here.


15 posted on 12/21/2007 4:55:16 AM PST by PBRSTREETGANG
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To: cinives
... why didn’t the parents just go ahead and do it, and worry about the bills later ?

<sarcasm>

Because everyone knows that it is impossible to get care without an insurer paying for it!

</sarcasm>

In all seriousness though... I wonder that as well. Home equity loans, credit cards, lines of credit... If that is what it took to save my children and I could get them, I don't see any other option but to make use of them.

16 posted on 12/21/2007 4:55:39 AM PST by pnh102
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To: Erik Latranyi

Exactly,

Thousand’s die on waiting lists in the countries with “universial health care”.


17 posted on 12/21/2007 4:56:23 AM PST by NavVet (If you don't defend conservatism in the Primary, you won't have it to defend in the Election)
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To: cinives
"why didn’t the parents just go ahead and do it, and worry about the bills later ?"

Good point. Maybe if the "friends, family and members of a nurses association" held a fund drive instead of a protest, she'd be alive today.

Then again, maybe her parents believed the insurance company's claim that it was experimental, she'd die, and they'd be stuck with $300K in medical bills.

18 posted on 12/21/2007 5:02:17 AM PST by robertpaulsen
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To: Thermalseeker

“I’m a pilot. My experience with insurance companies as far as airplanes go is that they really are no longer insurance companies at all. They are law firms masquerading as insurance companies”

Many insurance companies will deny claims at random just to see if the people will dispute it. Things like denying every 10th claim or large claims are common place.

No source that I can post. My source is a ex-director at a local insurance company and others in the medical field.


19 posted on 12/21/2007 5:02:46 AM PST by driftdiver
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To: PBRSTREETGANG

The coincidence that “the turn for the worse” happened to coincide with the surgery being approved seems suspicious, to me.


20 posted on 12/21/2007 5:03:25 AM PST by gridlock ("I'd gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today" -- J. Wellington Wimpy)
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