Anyone wondering about the quality of health care in the US should read this and shudder. A 17 years old girl had been battling leukemia and received a bone marrow transplant from her brother. She developed a complication, however, that caused her liver to fail. Doctors at UCLA Medical Center sent a letter to her insurance company CIGNA saying she needed a liver transplant on December 11. The company responded with a denial of payment for the operation.
Here is the kicker, the girl died Thursday, just hours after the fine folks at CIGNA reversed their decision under pressure. It is a clear case of "wealth = life, poverty = death." Had her family had lots of cash or connections with the hospital she might be alive today.
That kind of system is wrong, for our country and morally wrong for anyone. We must have a single-payer national health insurance to cover these kinds of things. It’s time we admit that health care should be part of your rights as a citizen of a developed country.
Next time anyone says to you that the USA has the best health care in the world, remind them we only rank 37th against other countries. And who is first in the world for quality of health care? France! Mon Dieu!
UPDATE: Now the families attorney is talking about pressing manslaughter charges against the insurance company. ABC News.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment