discussed ... or put RIGHT AT THE FRONT OF THE LINE?
Posted on 06/09/2013 11:10:59 AM PDT by Deadeye Division
U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has to be the most coldhearted person in America.
Sarah Murnaghan, a 10-year-old Pennsylvania girl, has end-stage cystic fibrosis. She is on a ventilator and will die in about a month without a lung transplant.
Doctors say Sarah’s best hope for survival would be to go on the waiting list for adult lungs rather than continue on the list for pediatric lungs.
Unfortunately for Sarah, there is something informally called the Under-12 rule, which says that children under 12 cannot receive adult organs unless adults and teens in their region refuse them first. She has been on the pediatric list since 2011 to no avail.
Nationally, about 1,700 people are waiting for lung transplants, including 31 children 10 and younger, according to Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network data. In Region 2, Sarah’s region, 222 people are waiting for lung transplants, including six children 10 and younger.
However, Sebelius has the power to waive the rules when she wishes.
In the case of Sarah, however, Sebelius refused to allow the 10-year-old to receive a life-saving lung. Sebelius would rather cling to some arbitrary rule drawing an arbitrary line than save the life of a 10-year-old girl.
This should sicken every American.
Lest you think I am being too harsh on Sebelius — after all, you might argue, maybe there is a sound medical reason for her thinking — her only stated reason for being so uncaring is, basically, rules are rules. She claimed that if she issued a waiver for Sarah, then it would no longer be the doctors making medical decisions.
However, that is patently false, because the doctors are not making the decision now, she is. Doctors have already said her best hope is for an adult lung. Sebelius rejected the doctors and several members of Congress who have pleaded with her to issue the exception.
Fortunately for Sarah, U.S. District Court Judge Michael Baylson ordered Kathleen Sebelius to direct the OPTN to make an exception to the Under-12 rule as it applies to Sarah for 10 days, until a hearing on Friday.
That move means that the girl can be considered more quickly for organs as an adult, instead of being limited to the pediatric transplant list. Her family is hopeful that the 10 days she will spend on the list will be enough for her to receive a life-saving lung, making the Friday hearing moot.
Clearly the rule is too arbitrary and has very little to do with medical science. If doctors determine a child would benefit from an adult lung, then the child should go on the list based on the severity of his or her condition rather than the child’s age.
But there is a deeper lesson here.
Death panels, anyone?
This is exactly the kind of thing Obamacare will be turning over to federal bureaucrats. We have, as a people, literally given the power over life and death to government functionaries.
And those decisions are being made based on regulations rather than medical science. Even if the regulations were made by doctors and other health professionals — as is the case with the Under-12 rule — the implementation and decisions based on those regulations are made by bureaucrats driven by priorities other than your well-being.
In light of the recent IRS scandal, would it be so hard to believe that bureaucrats will base health decisions on the politics of the person seeking the medical procedure? Or, perhaps, a person’s importance or level of wealth?
Regardless of your political leanings, can you honestly say you are comfortable giving government functionaries the power over whether you live or die?
Sarah and the 30 other children under 12 who are waiting for lungs, are living — or should that be dying — proof that taking medical decisions out of the hands of doctors and placing them into the hands of untrained bureaucrats is a recipe for disaster.
Fortunately for Sarah, Baylson injected some common sense into the mix and possibly saved her life. Unfortunately, he won’t be able to do so for the rest of us if that time comes.
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Thomas J. Lucente Jr. is licensed to practice law in the state of Ohio. He is a veteran of the Iraq war, has a bachelor’s degree in history and a law degree from the University of Toledo. He has been published in newspapers, magazines and websites across the country. He can be heard on “Talk with Ron Williams” on WCIT-AM at 3 p.m. Thursdays (listen at http://940wcit.com). Readers may write to him at The Lima News, 3515 Elida Road, Lima, Ohio 45807-1538, or e-mail him at tlucente@limanews.com. His telephone number is 800-686-9924, ext. 2095, or 419-993-2095. Visit his blog at http://www.lucente.org. Follow him on Twitter at http://tho.lu/twitter, Google Plus at http://tho.lu/google, and Facebook at http://tho.lu/facebook.
Most liberals make the mistake of treating economic issues as if our economy is a "zero sum game"; that is, any benefit to one person must be offset by a cost to someone else. The truth is that human productivity is variable and wealth can be created by encouraging the right behaviors.
Unfortunately, the issue of deciding who gets to benefit from organ transplants just may, in fact, be a "zero sum game". If an eleven-year-old is provided an opportunity which previously was reserved for those over twelve years old, then it seems to me that there is a likelihood that someone OVER twelve years old may lose that opportunity.
Is there a thirteen-year-old somewhere who is now going to die because this younger child is provided this opportunity? Life or death decisions by definition have life or death consequences.
Says who and with what scientific authority?
Just because the child's doctors say she will benefit from an adult lung when it's clear that she will benefit from any lung whatsoever does not mean that she is the best, most beneficial use of that adult lung.
Call me mean for saying so, but it seems obvious that size mismatch decreases the success ratio of lung transplants so denying an adult lung to an adult recipient in favor of a child will certainly effect the potential adult recipient negatively by increasing their wait time while their health deterioriates, but doesn't necessarily increase the potential benefit to the child because of the increased risk of failed transplant.
A failed transplant from pushing the risk ratios too far results in a wasted organ that benefits no one.
I don't think Sebelius was wrong to not interfere in a medical subject she knows nothing about.
I'm not convinced that drawing an analogy from how the OPTN works to how Obamacare will work is a valid one.
Socialists, such as Marx, and laissez faie capitalist, such as Ricardo, both accept the zero-sum-game, which long preceded the commercial and industrial revolutions that occured only in the West.
I am not comfortable with “best” in such cases.
Make healthcare impossibly expensive. Put it under the control of the government. The inevitable result is the government decides who lives and who dies.
Libs consider that better than having one’s ability to pay determine who gets treated.
(in reality we know that hospitals are forced to treat all regardless of their ability to pay, so no one goes without treatment in the USA because they can’t pay.)
Okay, why does a child have a greater “right” to a transplant organ than an adult (all things being equal)?
Why is it wrong to optimize the donated organ for best chance of success?
Since organs are finite and not fungible (i.e. any one will not work as equally well as another), it makes no sense to parcel them out on the basis of media campaigns, sympathy, or emotional reasons.
Reality is often cold and hard.
She took millions from the baby killer George Tiller while running for gov of Kansas. She is a baby killer. Google Tiller the Killer. Catherine Abortion Sebilus
http://optn.transplant.hrsa.gov/news/newsDetail.asp?id=1597
OPTN Response to Court Order Regarding Sarah Murnaghan
Link at site to read the letter.
On June 5, 2013, a federal district court judge issued a temporary restraining order enjoining the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to direct the OPTN to allow Sarah Murnaghan, a pediatric lung transplant candidate, to be considered alongside older candidates for lung offers from adolescent and adult donors without consideration of her age. The reply letter to the Secretary addresses OPTN actions taken as a result.
It is. The only answer is to do these matches anonymously, with just the medical facts. No names, no economic status, no fame or lack thereof connected to it. Changing the rules because publicity and politicians got involved is all wrong.
What about the rich who can afford to go somewhere where life is cheap and get a necessary transplant? I can't imagine that won't become a problem at some point. What about a search for inexpensive solutions to horrible medical situations? Long term that would probably be better. But that can only happen if there's money to be made in finding inexpensive solutions....those darn health care companies.
I don't really like the idea of live transplants, human or animal. I don't like DNA manipulation. Don't much like the sci-fi potential of where this could go. Don't know that my views wouldn't change if it were a loved one who needed saving, though.
Surprise, surprise, the law requires that they do what was being done and what Sebelius refused to intervene in.
(1) Shall be based on sound medical judgment;
(2) Shall seek to achieve the best use of donated organs.
She is the daughter of former Ohio Governor John Gilligan, a Roman Catholic.
Sebelius was educated at a Catholic private school in Cincinnati and then college at Trinity Washington University DC run by nuns, the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur.
A more self-hating Catholic one may never find.
I have a family member who may be put on the liver transplant list. Family members say that she has to have a certain MELD Score. MELD something to do with end-stage liver disease. The OPTN, I think, makes those rules.
I have a nephew on the heart/lung list and a close friend on the kidney list.
I am irritated with so many conservatives conflating the workings of the OPTN with Obamacare. It’s muddying the water.
Although, I hope the publicity has increased the numbers checking off the donor box.
Thank you!
Being a baby killer does not make Sebiulis wrong in this case.
Thanks for posting the response from the OPTN. Looks’ like to me everyone is trying to expedite this matter ASAP.
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