In the conservative utopian fantasy world private insurance companies are warm, loving entities that have only your best interests at heart and can make bucketfuls of profits doing it. In the real world that I inhabit, insurance companies are entities that make money by taking your payments and denying you treatment when you become too expensive. They also deny coverage for pre-existing conditions, thereby making many people complete unisurable.
We’ve been hearing about the latest conservative misinformation campaign about government-run “death panels” that will euthanize people. It’s a complete and utter lie but when has that ever stopped dishonest politicians from repeating it? Perhaps we need to revisit the case of Nataline Sarkisyan. The short story is that 17-year-old Nataline Sarkisyan got leukemia and then got a bone-marrow transplant from her brother. Unfortunately, she had complications and needed a liver transplant to survive. Nataline was fully insured – her family was covered by Cigna.
After the operation, her liver failed and doctors referred her for an emergency transplant. Although she was fully insured and had a matching donor, Cigna refused to pay on the grounds that her healthcare plan “does not cover experimental, investigational and unproven services”.
Cigna’s rejection on December 11 led Sarkisyan’s doctors at UCLA medical centre, including the head of its transplant unit, to write a letter to protest that the treatment which they proposed was neither experimental nor unproven. They called on the firm to urgently review its decision.
In the absence of a response from Cigna, doctors told the Sarkisyan family that the only alternative would be for the family to pay. But they could not afford the immediate down payment of $75,000 (£38,000).
After protests by family, friends and nurses at Cigna headquarters, Cigna relented. However, it was too late, Nataline died just hours after getting the approval.
This was a person who was fully insured, her parents were employed. Private insurance did not cover the expenses because they made a decision that the treatment was too expensive and had too little probability of success. This is the status quo that conservatives are defending so much.
The provision that has generated this controversy is actually for living wills.
Living wills and other advance directives describe your preferences regarding treatment if you’re faced with a serious accident or illness. These legal documents speak for you when you’re not able to speak for yourself — for instance, if you’re in a coma.
The health care reform bill would cover voluntary counseling for living wills. This provision was authored by two Republicans: Susan Collins and Johnny Isakson. In fact, the misinformation has gotten so widespread that Senator Isakson had to speak out:
Ezra Klein asked Sen. Johnny Isakson (R) of Georgia, a long-time advocate of expanding Medicare end-of-life planning coverage, to help explain why this common-sense idea has suddenly become an attack against reform. Isakson responded:
“I have no idea. I understand — and you have to check this out — I just had a phone call where someone said Sarah Palin’s web site had talked about the House bill having death panels on it where people would be euthanized. How someone could take an end of life directive or a living will as that is nuts. You’re putting the authority in the individual rather than the government. I don’t know how that got so mixed up.
“It empowers you to be able to make decisions at a difficult time rather than having the government making them for you…. And it’s a voluntary deal.”
There are many people out there lying to you. From now on, when a Republican makes a statement about what is supposedly in the health care bill they need to provide the following evidence: the link to the bill they are referring to (the are 4 different versions right now), section, page and paragraph so that we can all read it for ourselves. Otherwise we’ll just have to assume this is more conservative misinformation.