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.
Insurance companies suck! Liver transplants are not experimental.
Socialized medicine is not the cure.
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.
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.
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.
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...
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...
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.
I wonder what was “experimental” about a liver transplant?
Exactly,
Thousand’s die on waiting lists in the countries with “universial health care”.
So what would have happened had they not had insurance at all???
Then again - what would have happened if they were citizens of Canada or Great Britain?
The purpose of establishing a government health care system is so that a government agency can routinely deny medical care in the same manner as the insurance company did in this case -- BUT WITHOUT ANY EXPOSURE TO PATIENT LAWSUITS.
Tell that one to the folks over at DU and see what they think about it.
So what makes this OK and the Terri Schiavo incident not OK? Shouldn’t insurance companies do everything possible to assure someone’s right to life? What makes an insurance company’s decision to not pay for a procedure which assures someone’s imminent death ethical? </stirring the pot!>
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At DU?......This IS socialized medicine! When A family cannot decide what’s right for their children, THAT is socialized medicine....
Thats the company I have...I hate dealing with them.
Don’t even need to read the rest of the story. CIGNA is a four letter word in my house. Biggest bunch of incompetent, pathetic morons in the world. They actually refused to pay a bill for me. Took my 8 year old daughter to hospital clinic for breathing problems. They couldn’t diagnose it and sent her across the hall to ER. They also couldn’t figure it out and had her admitted. It turned out to not be serious and a night in an oxygen tent took care of it. I guess he knew better than eight or so physicians. CIGNA refused to pay the bill because the 8th grade dropout in their medical department ruled it to not be an emergency. Then, after we followed all the grievance policies, they called and told me my wages would be garnished. In a meeting that day with HR, they said that CIGNA might be able to garnish the wages. I stood up and said that “they can’t garnish what I don’t have and I quit.” The HR people were yelling “Get back here, you’
re not quitting your job over this.” My company paid the tab that their wonderful insurance company refused.
BTW, they don’t take to kindly when their medical staff is called a bunch of 8th grade dropouts.
If you check, the socialized medicine utopias in the UK, Canada and Australia DO NOT pay for kids liver transplants either and if parents want their kid to get a liver transplant or other specialized treatments they need to come to the US.
If we had socialized medicine, this procedure would have been flatly refused and not reconsidered simply because there wouldn't be fund to cover it. Socialized medicine always results in some level of rationing of health care, because the government does not have an unlimited budget, and there is always some expensive, experimental procedure with a low chance of success that people will want to try when someone's life hangs in the balance.
With Cigna, or any private insurer, if they cover such a procedure for one patient, they will have to cover it for any other patient in the same situation. Even though the patient died before the procedure was attempted, it was approved. The precedent has been set, and Cigna is now going to have to pay for this new procedure. It they try to not do so, they will get sued, and they will lose.
However, payments for procedures doesn't simply come out of the coffers of insurance companies, it comes from the policy premiums. This is why insurance premiums are going up at 3 to 4 times the rate of inflation. Insurance companies are happy to provide coverage for anything as long as policy holders are willing to pay the premiums to cover it.
When insurers refuse treatment, they are doing so because they are attempting to keep the premiums from going up as much. It is not in the insurance companies best interests to deny necessary treatments, and bad press will usually cause them to cave. However, it isn't the insurance company that will be paying more because of it, it's the premium holders.
Actually, the insurance companies usually make more money, not less when they increase coverage and premiums to cover the costs, because there earnings tend to be a relatively fixed percentage of the costs.
As for gubmint insurance, they are the same as ordinary insurance, if it's not covered they don't pay. That is the fantasy the "Hillary care" stooges believe, that we would get somehow "better" care than the insurance company now offers. In most countries, you die, if you need expensive treatments. The "important" people seem to get the care, and the expendable ones seem to be expended.
As far as comparing this to Terri Schiavo, Terri wasn't on life support, she just had a feeding tube, as tens of thousands of people have right now. Her care was paid for with a settlement so there were no money problems. If she had been fed, she would have lived to a ripe old age. Her parents could have fed her at home if they had a blender. She could eat anything, but her throat muscles didn't work, so her ham sandwich would have been injected into her feeding tube directly. This person was being kept alive by artificial means because you can't survive long without a liver and time ran out before she got the ok for a transplant. That happens thousands of times a day. She could have been transfered to China, had a Christian executed, and a liver would have been available for purchase. That is big business with our friends, the Chinese.
As all the locations mentioned are Los Angeles area, I suspect the
“Westwood” source might mean the girl was in UCLA hospital.
If there’s any place where liver transplants are routine (but yes,
expensive), it’s at UCLA Hospital. They also do the procedure of
transplanting just a portion of the liver from a donor. I guess that
partial liver that’s implanted into the recipient grows back
to do the function (essentially) of a full liver.
I don’t think this report is giving out “the rest of the story”
(in Paul Harvery verbiage).