John Edwards using Nataline Sarkisyan for political gain

Repulsive. I cringed every time I saw him use her name during the debates on Saturday.

My question to Mr. Edwards: would Medicare, his “government-run health plan”, a Canadian-style single-payer system, or the NHS have approved the surgery? Answer that question first before you go blaming CIGNA.

For every health insurer horror story that is being sensationalized in the media, ask yourself if a single-payer system or the NHS would approve what is being denied.

Comments

Anonymous
It is quite clear, given the waiting times in Canada, the 50+ year olds denied treatment in England and Canada, the limited resources, that any government health plan would have looked at the treatment which would not have cured her and declared it a waste of resources. The answer to your question is clearly that she would not have received the transplant in Canada, England, or any other nationalized healthcare system.
ERMurse
The Government run healthcare crowd that are latching on to the Nataline Sarkisyan tradagy have totally lost credibility. Not only would her transplant not have been approved by a Government run system because of the poor odds of survival, the Hospital, UCLA, did not need CIGNA’s approval to perform the operation. They had an unstable patient and a noarrow window of availability of a Liver. UC could have performed the operation and sought payment later from a variety of sources or done it as charity care and been the winner for being the good guys. They (UC)are the ones that should answer for the delay. Insurance approves payment not operations. There is a big difference. It plays much better in left politics to call Insurance executives murders than to objectively evaluate an issue.
Karoli
Let’s look at it from a simpler viewpoint than single payer vs. insurance.
Should her doctors have been second-guessed by the insurance company? Why wasn’t the word of four qualified specialists enough for approval the first time around?
When insurance companies use gastroenterologists to approve or deny psychiatric medications prescribed by a board-certified psychiatrist, I have a problem with the system and it needs to be fixed.
I don’t have a problem with what Edwards is doing in this case. It was a travesty for Cigna to deny benefits they legally should have provided and ultimately agreed to just in time for her to die.
This is their standard operating procedure – deny, deny, deny and force the patient and physician to push back with appeal after appeal until they finally approve it.
It happened to me for three years. Not in a life-threatening situation like this, but it still cost me $7,000 on top of the $15,000 I paid them in premiums for those three years, and that doesn’t count my employer’s contribution.
Do the math — you’ll see who profited from it and why so many of us think the system as it stands today needs to be fixed.
ERMurse
Karoli,
Your making my point. There is an appeals process and they usually pay. All the more reason UC should gone ahead with the operation and settled the claim later. They do it all the time. Its ultimatly their decision and the families. They didnt go through with it because they knew the patient was not a good candidate. Great way to avoid responsibility and make someone else the bad guy. What do you think the political leaning is of the UC medical system is. I suspect pretty left. I’m sure thats totally coincidence.
Anonymous
Great question, Kevin!
Hopefully WSJ editors caught on to this blog as well. If they did, maybe they could further expose the politicians’ farce, when the matter is looked at a different light.
DermDoc
I agree with Kevin on this one. Edwards appeal to emotion is a fallacious argument. It does not prove that insurance is evil. A better argument can actually be made that the physicians suggested unnecessary futile care.
It is a tragic story and a repulsive choice by Mr Edwards. Shame on him.
Anonymous
Maybe I don’t know all the details, but I am a little confused. Was a liver ever availabale? Was there a living donor? My husband had a heart transplant 10 years ago and there was quite a lot involved before he was approved by the insurance company. He was listed tenatively and if the heart had become available he could have received the transplant. We waited 3 months, and that was faster then we thought it would be. Plus I thought cancer patients were not always approved because of the immunosuppressent drugs. I know things have changed, and I realize that there is a lot of emotion involved. I also understand its a different organ. Transplant is hard enough even when things go well. I just hate for the doctors and insurance company to take such a bad rap when people don’t understand the whole situation.

John Edwards using Nataline Sarkisyan for political gain

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