Posted on 08/09/2009 2:39:50 PM PDT by WhiteCastle
The news from Barbara Wagner's doctor was bad, but the rejection letter from her insurance company was crushing.
The 64-year-old Oregon woman, whose lung cancer had been in remission, learned the disease had returned and would likely kill her. Her last hope was a $4,000-a-month drug that her doctor prescribed for her, but the insurance company refused to pay.
What the Oregon Health Plan did agree to cover, however, were drugs for a physician-assisted death. Those drugs would cost about $50.
"It was horrible," Wagner told ABCNews.com. "I got a letter in the mail that basically said if you want to take the pills, we will help you get that from the doctor and we will stand there and watch you die. But we won't give you the medication to live."
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
“Grandma got run over by Socialized Healthcare” might be a song there
$4000 a month drug, and we wonder why socialism is taking root.
TFA says the woman was a lifelong smoker. Hmmm. Didn’t we raise cigarette taxes to pay for their treatment?
Still, wowsers — pretty lame treatment of her by the bureaucracy. In any event, get ready for the ObamaCare “DMV agent” making decisions on when you may die. After all, this bill has been lobbyist approved.
Insurance is not a birthright, nor is any drug in particular. But most of all the issue of cost is device that derails the issue from its moral essentials.
It’s market forces at work, DonaldC. Drug with limited use (can’t use it for headaches!) still costs almost $1B to develop. Patent life is limited (and much of it is eaten up by the development phase; actual time-on-market patent life is probably very short).
You want the best stuff? You gotta pay for the risks involved in coming up with it. You want cheaper stuff? Live with less efficacy and fewer choices.
Or we could do what Europe does, which is extend the patent life of drugs, so that companies can lower the prices as they have longer to recoup. But oops, Obama and the Congress already ruled that possibility out.
There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch. Socialism is a big lie.
And they think Obamacare is going to pay for a $4000 drug at her age/??
I am not even sure they would for someone that was 30 years old.
We raised taxes through the roof on tabacco to pay for more perks and pork for those in the elite political class, and raises for unions all around.
There is absolutely no incentive to ever devote one dime to tabacco cessation from the tax money. Don’t worry, non-smokers they will come for you soon enough.
The best cure is euthanasia?
This is creepy. On a scale of one to ten, it rates about a twelve or thirteen.
This is not even hospice care, it is move the animals through the kill chute.
And who knows, the cancer may go into remission on its own even WITHOUT the $4,000 a month drug regimen. I understand some of the alternative medicines are reporting pretty surprising results.
But when you take away all hope, what is there?
He just died of his cancer.
Oregon has ranked the top 500+ health procedures in order of precedence. Interestingly, smoking cessation and obesity are higher on the list than an emergency appendectomy.
Doesn’t matter..give Obamacare a few years, and there will be no $4K/month drugs. Government-controlled medicine drives innovation from the market. There will be no incentive to take the financial/legal risks to develop treatments for conditions that are relatively rare, such as MS, specific forms of cancer, Huntington’s, etc., because government price controls will not allow the market to work.
The way the process works now, companies are incentivized to develop treatments for specific cancers, even though the incidence of the cancers is relatively low. They know that once they get an indication for end-stage cancer of a certain kind, physicians will expand the use of the medication to earlier stages of that particular form of cancer and also to other types of cancer. Thus, the actual market turns out to be bigger (and more profitable) than the apparent market. (Even this sort of innovation is being disincentivized by a government that threatens drugmakers with fraud charges when doctors utilize drugs for “off-label” treatment and also refuses to pay for off-label usage.)
Of course, the focus on medication costs requires us to ignore the fact that appropriate drug treatment actually tremendously reduces the overall cost of medical care. Obviously not in the case of end-stage cancer treatment, but in the treatment of chronic disease, by reducing hospitalization costs, trips to the ER, more costly treatment later, etc.
And here’s an ironic twist: smokers are cheaper in the long run. They die earlier and faster, saving all the money that would otherwise be spent treating years of dementia and other chronic disease.
Evidently, the drug company ponied up free medication for this woman. But I have a question. She is a great-grandmother. To me, that means she has an extensive family. Why are they not helping out with the costs? Part of being a proponent of subsidiarity (which I assume most Freepers are—it just means having the smallest human unit possible responsible for processes and activities) is having people rely on their families first, before they turn to their neighbors and then to total strangers.
I suspect that the woman’s family, along with a church community, could have handled a large part of the expense of this treatment. But they are never confronted with that question, because we have indeed “socialized” our minds to expect the government/large corporations to take care of us.
OTOH, we do need to have conversations about the marginal costs of care. $16,000 for a projected best-case scenario of six extra months of life. Would we spend $160,000?
At what point is a payer of any kind (government or insurance company) justified in denying payment for unproven treatment or very small increments of benefit? Just askin...
I was curious as to where all the tobacco tax and tobacco settlement money went. Wasn't it supposed to cover smoking related health costs?
Yep. That was the lie. Bow they can raise taxes on smokers and no one complains - non-smokers smirk, but later they get their turn.
I wonder if they want the $50 up front? maybe they take checks.........
She still has an option at this point. In another 10 years, the ‘medical team’ will make the decision for folks like this so they don’t have to worry about their options.
Involuntary euthanasia is already being carried out in Europe.
Sung to the tune of Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer
Grandma got run over by Obama
Walking to the doctor’s without leave
You can say there’s no such thing as rationing
But as for me and Grandpa we believe
She’d been seeing Doc quite often
For her heart and lumbago
But one day she got a letter
Saying “sacrifice yourself; it’s time to go”
They found her DOA that mornin’
At the scene of the attack
“Rejected” stamped upon her forehead
And an incriminatin’ O upon her back
Grandma got run over by Obama
Walking to the doctor’s without leave
You can say there’s no such thing as rationing
But as for me and Grandpa we believe
Now we’re all so proud of Grandpa
They don’t have him on the run
See him in there watchin’ NASCAR
And clinging bitterly to God and guns
It’s just not the same without Grandma
She was too young to be whacked
Only 70 on her next birthday
But too old according to The One’s contract
Grandma got run over by Obama
Walking to the doctor’s without leave
You can say there’s no such thing as rationing
But as for me and Grandpa we believe
Now the funeral is over
And the family’s steeped in gloom
And now ACORN’s at the front door
Taking stock of Grandpa’s empty extra room
I’ve warned all my friends and neighbors
Better watch out for your health
We should never have elected
A man whose main concern is spreading wealth
Grandma got run over by Obama
Walking to the doctor’s without leave
You can say there’s no such thing as rationing
But as for me and Grandpa we believe!
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