Posted on 06/04/2013 12:38:30 PM PDT by drewh
House Republicans on Tuesday pressed the country’s top health official to cut through the government red tape in order to let a dying child have a chance at getting a lung transplant, as Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius continued to argue that the situation is "difficult." Sebelius, ultimately, did not say what the government would do in the high-profile case of 10-year-old Sarah Murnaghan, who is dying from cystic fibrosis but cannot get an adult lung until they are offered first to adult patients.
Georgia Republican Rep. Tom Price, a doctor, told Sebelius that he understands the federal policy and appreciates her sympathy about the situation. But, he said, she can save the child’s life by “signing a paper.” Price cut off Sebelius during a Republican-led House committee hearing on the department’s 2014 budget proposal, as she was talking about how she personally talked to Sarah’s mother.
Price, said the child could die during the review process, considering it includes a lengthy public-comment period. “I’m begging you,” Rep. Lou Barletta, R-Pa., said. “Sarah has three to five weeks to live.” Pediatric lungs are rare, and the Murnaghan family thought their daughter would have a shot at a transplant if she made a list of adults. Sebelius repeated that surgeons and transplant doctors say the probability of a successful transplant is low when a child as young as Sara receives an adult lung. However, Barletta and others say Sarah’s doctors think the transplant could be successful.
Republicans at the hearing also got support for Pennsylvania Rep. Patrick Meehan, a former U.S. attorney, who said his review of federal policy shows Sebelius could a make the exception “without upsetting precedent or violating consistency of allocation policy.” He also suggested the child is a victim of age discrimination
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
I vote to give her Sebelius’s lung. Has to be a better place for the lung than where it is now.
Notice how her own comment contradicts itself.
“I would suggest, sir, that, again, this is an incredibly agonizing situation where someone lives and someone dies. The medical evidence and the transplant doctors who are making the rule—and have had the rule in place since 2005 making a delineation between pediatric and adult lungs, because lungs are different than other organs—that it’s based on the survivability chances.”
Oh really?
Well how about this, you ass, the chances of this girl surviving without a transplant are...ZERO!
Good God in Heaven, what a monster such people are. Trying to throw all of this illogic at us and just have it be accepted.
I am willing to bet if it were her ten year-old daughter, or grand-daughter, the rule would be waived somehow...bercaue, you know, they are the "beautiful" people, who are meant to rule over us.
This attitude is going to catch up with these people in psades some day. As far as I am concerned, the sooner the better.
Line jumping will affect the person who WOULD have gotten it if the little girl doesn’t.
The little girl’s life is not worth more than whoever’s next in line, or vice versa.
I do not want the government deciding who gets, who doesn’t get, an organ.
Guidelines that everyone follows were put in place for all of us so we don’t have a popularity contest when the next liver comes up. That’s the point of guideline, because loved ones are dying, often in agony, and no one can possibly make a rational decision in that scenario.
So we make standards and we get in line and it’s “fair,” fair as we can make it, without emotional appeals and who-gets-the-most-press and who-has-the-best-connections.
So... she should be jumped ahead of other kids, young adults, etc... why?
Sad story, but likely no sadder than other folks who will die in the next few weeks unless they get a lung.
Agreed.
I notice that the reps advocating for the girl are both Republicans.Democrats remain notably silent it seems.
I completely agree with you and am having trouble understanding how people just can’t understand this.
Do we really want a cabinet level appointee overriding the OPTN and deciding who should get someone else’s vital organs? And I thought the IRS scandal was frightening.
The parents are not merely asking to give a child an adult’s lungs they are asking to skip ahead of others on the registry and they are trying to do so by getting the drive by media to gin up a national emotional response. They deserve our prayers and empathy but they do not deserve special favors from Kathleen Sebelius.. Whom shockingly I happen to agree with on this occasion ( it is more likely however that I agree with her lawyers:)
Death Panel.
Unless they are going to just let a set of lungs die, I don’t have an issue with following the rules. There has to be some basis for the decision, and as sad as it is, a decision has to be made.
Agreed, we shouldn’t have decisions like this made on the basis of who is able to mobilize a press campaign. The nameless, faceless “other” person who would die without a lung isn’t worth any less. But God bless this girl, hope she finds a miracle.
Also, I’m betting that the parents’ voter registration isn’t conducive to her receiving the lung transplant.
From a philosophical and personal religious point of view, I'm opposed to transplants (human or animal) and even blood transfusions....but my view has never been tested by it being a loved one who needed a transplant.
” Good God in Heaven, what a monster such people are. Trying to throw all of this illogic at us and just have it be accepted. “
Worse than Al Capone, and Obamacare will make Capone look benign by comparison.
The issue is not whether she should be allowed to jump to the front of the line but whether she should be allowed to even get in line.
Her doctors say that an adult lung transplant would be successful, but federal rules says that she cannot get on the waiting list for an adult lung until she is 12.
Expect a lot more of this when Obamacare goes into effect. It doesn’t matter what your doctor says you need if the federal government says you cannot have it. On the other hand, 10 year olds will get free birth control and abortions.
Yeah, like the others... the heart says “make it happen” for that little girl... but what about the individual who’s next on the waiting list? And what happens when the next CF victim’s family steps up and says, “Do the same for us!”
It’s a tough call and I’m glad I don’t have to make it.
All that said.. I still despise, for so many other reasons, Kathleen Sebilius.
Exactly! She can’t get IN the line. Federal rules for lung transplants? There will be thousands of stories worse after 2014.
Per an AP article at http://apnews.myway.com/article/20130604/DA6MPFHG2.html her private gov’t email address is:
“The AP decided to publish the secret address for Sebelius - KGS2(at)hhs.gov - over the government’s objections because the secretary is a high-ranking civil servant who oversees not only major agencies like the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services but also the implementation of Obama’s signature health care law. Her public email address is Kathleen.Sebelius(at)hhs.gov.”
Here ya go Freepers: Sebelius’ secret email address. Let Sebelius know what you think.
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