http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookout/after-budget-cuts-indiana-baby-denied-life-saving-treatment An Indiana baby needs life-saving surgery, but the state health care agency -- whose budget was slashed this year -- won't pay for it. Six-month-old Seth Petreikis suffers from complete DiGeorge syndrome, which keeps him from developing a thymus, an infection-fighting glandular organ. He needs a transplant that's been pioneered by a specialist at Duke University in North Carolina. But the procedure costs $500,000, and the state's Family Social Services Administration won't pay for it under the state's Medicaid, reports the Northwest Indiana Times. It claims that the treatment is "experimental" -- even though 58 of 60 children to receive it have survived. We last wrote about Indiana's FSSA after some of its staffers told parents to drop off their developmentally disabled children at homeless shelters. The parents had failed to receive schedule Medicare waivers to pay for care, after Gov. Mitch Daniels -- who is now weighing a possible 2012 GOP presidential run -- cut the agency's funding to deal with a budget shortfall. As we've reported, Arizona, suffering from its own budget crunch, has cut funding for certain medical transplants for people with diseases such as leukemia and hepatitis B. Seth's parents have set up a fund for those who want to contribute to the cost of his treatment. there will be triage not based upon survival probability but based upon money even for highly effective treatments. the elderly should be particularly on notice as they likely to be deemed to be less important to society.
Please don't title this, "Effective medical treatment denied in the US," when the actual case is "Payment for effective medical treatment denied in the US." These things are available, if you can pay for them. Do you really expect that everyone can be treated for free for everything, going forward? There is not that much money. Something has to give. Rare diseases are expensive sometimes. No, it is not "fair," but what is? Shit happens. Why should all of us be forced to pay for this bizarre stuff when there are people being booted off unemployment? The parents have the right idea: get the story into the media, and people can voluntarily help them. Nothing wrong with that. And if someone is to be considered less valuable, why not the elderly? I am bumping up against being one of them, and I think this is a good place to start, since we are going to have to start somewhere. I do not object to the idea that some 5-year old's vaccines and annual pediatric exams may get funded in front of me. I have had my life, and a rather good one it has been. Furthermore, I have had a chance to save, to insulate myself somewhat from the possibility of financial catastrophe due to illness. A child or a young family has had no such opportunity.
Valid points and a sensible response. Out of curoisity, I'd like to know how much that $500,000 procedure would cost in say India.