Wednesday, January 02, 2008
BLOGSCAN - The Case of the Liver Transplant that Wasn't
On the Health Beat blog, Maggie Mahar dissected the complex and unfortunate case of a teenager who died shortly after her family's health care insurer rejected paying for a proposed liver transplant in desperate circumstances. Ms Maher brought up a host of issues and questions that did not surface in discussion in the main stream media. The one I thought was most relevant to Health Care Renewal: given how sick this patient was, if the physicians and hospital administrators involved thought a transplant was so urgently needed, why weren't they willing to go ahead with the procedure in the absence of a $75,000 down-payment by the patient's family?
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It was not an accident that the mainstream media didn’t ask the question of why didn’t the hospital proceed with the procedure anyway and get approval retrospectively. It plays much better in the media by those who are pushing the universal, ie Government run, Healthcare if the Insurance Company is the villain and evil Insurance company exec's can be called murderers. Everyone in the business knows that the procedure does not get approval from the insurance company, payment for the procedure does. In urgent cases there is no reason for the hospital to delay the transplant if a liver is available. The University of California has acted as a co-conspirator in this media manipulation. They are the ones who should answer for the delay..
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