CBS: Private Insurance Company delays/denies insured woman until it kills her

[Thorgrim]

YouTube Video

Pretty simple nightmare that could happen to ANY ONE OF YOU

You pay your insurance, you're a good citizen, you have a medical problem that hits us all just at different levels of severity...

Insurance has it's doctors look at the situation, they say she needs a liver transplant, her brother is an easy match...everything is a go

then, the private insurance penny pinchers come in and deny the surgery, saying it's too expensive, even though it would save her life

they delay, then deny, then consider while delaying, eventually after massive protests, they give in only after they realize how ridiculously evil they look

too late...she died from her liver before they could give her a new one



This is the kind of insurance you want your kids to have? If you think universal healthcare and a reformation of private healthcare will help things (the progressive approach) or you think abolishing all regulation will someone have made the insurance company more generous...when all they cared about was the bottom line (i dont see how libertarians could blame them)

The point is:

It needs to be changed, and you should vote for someone, Republican or Democrat, who will actually and substantially change the system and make it so Americans, insured like Nataline, do not go through what she did...so that your child/family does not die because of private insurance

[kinggovernor]

how can healthcare be free if everyone gets all the medical care they desire?

[bheld]

Originally Posted by kinggovernor

how can healthcare be free if everyone gets all the medical care they desire?

This isn't a case of rationing. This is a case of profit trumping everything else.

[Thorgrim]

Originally Posted by bheld

This isn't a case of rationing. This is a case of profit trumping everything else.

There is a reason it was national news...as I already pointed out, this could be any of you...everyone gets medical problems, what would you do if it were potentially lethal and your insurance kept delaying and denying?

You would die, despite the thousands of dollars you spent on health insurance

I'm just waiting for John Stossel to come in and call all the news outlets in the country a fraud

[ballz2wallz]

It's a sad story (though I think there may be more to it than we are shown here) and it should be addressed, but certainly not with government intervention. Cigna should be punished for any wrong-doing, but this is no argument for the federal government to get involved.

The following quotes express my opinion on this:

Originally Posted by Ardentfrost

But that still doesn't matter, because you shouldn't punish responsible people because of the actions of irresponsible people.

Originally Posted by motivez

People make bad decisions all the time, why should we have a nanny state where the government plays the role of a parent telling people not to do stuff...?

[Thorgrim]

If Cigna is sued in court, the government is involved...its their court, your tax dollars

who is talking about punishment? I'm talking about stopping situations like this, preventative measures, not punitive towards all insurance companies...but if you wanted to go that road, note the 1.3 million complaints of delays/petty bickering by insurance companies to save money, some cases that result like this one did, they just don't get the media involved

And this women didn't make a bad choice...she did everything right

If that were someone you loved dying on that table, I have a feeling you'd be looking at this differently

[ballz2wallz]

Originally Posted by Thorgrim

If Cigna is sued in court, the government is involved...its their court, your tax dollars

I said the federal government. And I never complained about the courts, I complained about federal regulation.

who is talking about punishment? I'm talking about stopping situations like this, preventative measures, not punitive towards all insurance companies...but if you wanted to go that road, note the 1.3 million complaints of delays/petty bickering by insurance companies to save money, some cases that result like this one did, they just don't get the media involved

And this women didn't make a bad choice...she did everything right

I never said she did, I said Cigna did.

If that were someone you loved dying on that table, I have a feeling you'd be looking at this differently

Isn't this the same argument Democrats are against when arguing about the use of waterboarding?

Anyway, the answer is that my response would be the same, given that I'm pointing the finger at Cigna right now.

In the end, I think that this is a result of our faulted healthcare system, which is faulted for the simple reason that it's been too heavily regulated to begin with.

[Thorgrim]

Originally Posted by ballz2wallz

I said the federal government. And I never complained about the courts, I complained about federal regulation.

I never said she did, I said Cigna did.

Isn't this the same argument Democrats are against when arguing about the use of waterboarding?

Anyway, the answer is that my response would be the same, given that I'm pointing the finger at Cigna right now.

In the end, I think that this is a result of our faulted healthcare system, which is faulted for the simple reason that it's been too heavily regulated to begin with.

the federal government helps with federal and state court

also, torture has been showed to give the wrong information, it's a bad means to a bad end, since when is advanced life-saving treatment a bad means to a bad end?

I don't see any regulation involved when a company says "itll be cheaper if we don't do the surgery, file some more paperwork, ttyl"

its typical private business "lets do anything to make a profit", if a person with no friends living out of a van who has paid his health insurance came in, they'd kill him too, it's all about the bottom line

[ballz2wallz]

Originally Posted by Thorgrim

the federal government helps with federal and state court

So what?

[Thorgrim]

You said the government should not be involved, I showed you they are
You then said the FEDERAL government should not be involved, I showed you they are

[motivez]

I really don't think my quote has any bearing on this situation tbh, I was talking about an individual making a personal choice to take drugs and the government telling him he couldn't (even if he was only hurting himself)

This situation is about a corporation who denied a paying customer a lifesaving operation despite the fact that she had a policy with them, etc.. simply because of greed.

It's very sad, situations like this are all too common place, Sicko highlighted some, but these are by no means the only times the companies care more about their bottom line than the people they're supposed to be serving.

Insurance is an odd industry, they profit more by their customers dying than they would by keeping them as customers. The more expensive the procedure they need is, and the more life threatening the situation, the better motivation the company has to allow the person to die by denying coverage through whatever technical bullshit they can find.

The free market can't solve this, because even if costs are down through increased competition, the motivation to deny coverage (profitability) will still be there.

The more they deny, the more people die without them making large payouts for surgery, the better their shareholders do... and as many of the free marketeers have said, a private companies real responsibility is to it's shareholders.

[7960]

With her complications there was a 65% chance she was going to die in less than 6 months anyway. Why not give the liver to someone with more of a chance at living?

[Ardentfrost]

Originally Posted by 7960

With her complications there was a 65% chance she was going to die in less than 6 months anyway. Why not give the liver to someone with more of a chance at living?

B/c she's dying NOW... that other guy will die when he can't get the liver later. Duh

[Thorgrim]

Originally Posted by Ardentfrost

B/c she's dying NOW... that other guy will die when he can't get the liver later. Duh

It was her brother liver's...not some highway accident victim

No one was going to "die" if she got her brother's liver

It's interesting to note Arden and 7960 will go reading through layers of backround material to try and find a way to excuse a private company, yet ignore the obvious facts

[7960]

Originally Posted by Ardentfrost

B/c she's dying NOW... that other guy will die when he can't get the liver later. Duh

so give the liver to someone who's going to die anyway?

there's NOBODY else who would benefit more from that liver?

[Ardentfrost]

Originally Posted by Thorgrim

It was her brother liver's...not some highway accident victim

No one was going to "die" if she got her brother's liver

It's interesting to note Arden and 7960 will go reading through layers of backround material to try and find a way to excuse a private company, yet ignore the obvious facts

Naw, I was just posting that as an extreme position. In reality I think all insurance is bullshit and that, plus the government's supports of insurance not to mention their multitude of regulations on the medical industry including making it VERY easy to sue doctors, make it very unfair to not only the patients, but the doctors. There should be nothing that gets between a patient and their doctor. Right now the insurance company and the gov't get between them.

I know, I know, we gotta think about the children and how evil doctors want to kill them all, but I believe a few bad ones, although impossible to root out completely, will be majorly hurt by bad reputations and NEEDED civil cases such that they will no longer be able to practice. One Doctor of Evil doesn't ruin that system in my mind, whereas the prices now-a-days (especially when compared to prices even 35 years ago) make us all feel oppressed by this system.

But hey, that's my opinion. And in this case, there would have been no one getting between this chick's bro's liver and her living 6 more months.

[7960]

I'm not going to go reading through layers of background material. But I will say if I pay the $5 version for insurance for vision and then need glasses they're not going to be covered by insurance. Would you agree with me if I organized 150 people to go stand outside my insurance agent's office to chant about how I can't read because the insurance company won't buy me glasses?

[Thorgrim]

Originally Posted by Ardentfrost

Naw, I was just posting that as an extreme position. In reality I think all insurance is bullshit and that, plus the government's supports of insurance not to mention their multitude of regulations on the medical industry including making it VERY easy to sue doctors, make it very unfair to not only the patients, but the doctors. There should be nothing that gets between a patient and their doctor. Right now the insurance company and the gov't get between them.

I know, I know, we gotta think about the children and how evil doctors want to kill them all, but I believe a few bad ones, although impossible to root out completely, will be majorly hurt by bad reputations and NEEDED civil cases such that they will no longer be able to practice. One Doctor of Evil doesn't ruin that system in my mind, whereas the prices now-a-days (especially when compared to prices even 35 years ago) make us all feel oppressed by this system.

But hey, that's my opinion. And in this case, there would have been no one getting between this chick's bro's liver and her living 6 more months.

Government regulations didn't deny the liver transplant, it was a private company trying to make a profit...they killed this poor women because the most profitable patient is one who pays all their insurance fees and then dies before actually using it to save their life

[WickedLou9]