A Gift Of Treatment

[Blisspath]

How would you like to get a letter like this in the mail? A lady in Oregon was notified that the state health care plan wouldn't pay for her cancer but would however pay for comfort measures and physician assisted suicide(which I support btw) The drug company has agreed to give the medicine to the woman for free. This is why I don't think universal health care would work here..the equal access problem would prove way too costly to allow the program to ever be ran under budget.
http://www.registerguard.com/csp/cms/sites/dt.cms.support.viewStory.cls?cid=106873&sid=1&fid=1

[Aegix Drakan]

...WHAAAAAT?


She was particularly upset because the letter of denial said that doctor-assisted suicide would be covered.

“To say to someone, we’ll pay for you to die, but not pay for you to live, it’s cruel,” she said. “I get angry. Who do they think they are?”


...I'm sorry, but to tell someone that they can't treat you, but they CAN help you die is just fucking nasty.

[Brasel]

Good god thats absurd. I don't condone any sort of suicide unless you have absolutely have no hope of having any standard of life, as in you're in a vegetative state for the remainder of your life. If I'm brain dead, I say pull the life support, but this woman still has coherent thought and can still function. I would want any attempt at keeping me alive and healthy as possible. Its not that I'm afraid of death, I just wouldn't be ready, I have too many things I want to do before I die.

[Lilith]

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[Breaker]

this story is bullshit. she didn't recieve a letter saying "we're not going to pay for this, but we will let you kill yourself!". cancer treatment, especially experimental and new forms of treatment, can cost millions of dollars. i know this for a fact. i worked for one of the largest insurance companies in the US. people usually reach their annual maximums within only a few months, even with good insurance plans. this woman didn't even have insurance. the article only refers to it as a "state health plan". she could have been trying to get medicaid to cover her costs for all we know. of course they didn't cover it.

when you get an insurance plan you can see the contract of what they'll cover. be sure to read it over when you start paying for one so you're not surprised and SOL like this woman. pay real special attention to plan maximums and what you're deductibles are.

[biggiy05]

awesome

Lilith try and contribute something to the thread next time instead of the usual one word or posts that have no relevance.