Oregon State Health Care Plan Won’t Treat Woman’s Cancer But Will Pay For Her Suicide

• June 21, 2008

Ahh, the wonders of government-run health care.

After weeks of bad news, things turned Barbara Wagner’s way this week.
Last month her lung cancer, in remission for about two years, was back. After her oncologist prescribed a cancer drug that could slow the cancer growth and extend her life, Wagner was notified that the Oregon Health Plan wouldn’t cover it.
It would cover comfort and care, including, if she chose, doctor-assisted suicide.

This reminds me of a story my grandmother, who is in her nineties, heard at one of her cancer support groups (she’s a breast cancer survivor). A woman from Canada who was in her mid-seventies at the time said that she had moved to America so that she could get her cancer treated at an American hospital because in Canada she was told that she was too old to be treated.
At the time she told the story her cancer was in remission and everything pointed to her having a decade two of life yet to live.
Can you imagine what it would feel like to have your doctor tell you you’re too old to be worth fixing? Or having a government bureaucrat tell you that they won’t pay to fight the illness that’s killing you but they will pay for you to kill yourself?
That’s the reality of government-run health care.

Tags: Domestic Issues, Politics

http://www.bikebubba.blogspot.com/ Bike Bubba

You, who would presume to lecture us about how the Oregon program is better than the rest, don’t know the difference between Medicare and Medicaid?

You, who would lecture us on how cheap hospice care is, would fail to learn that back in 2002, the average cost was $120/day, about the same as the cost of the drug today?

Here’s another good link on that. It turns out that end of life hospice care is often more expensive than traditional, hospital based care.

http://www.rand.org/news/press.04/02.16.html

With that level of knowledge, you don’t work for Oregon’s health system, do you?
http://www.bikebubba.blogspot.com/ Bike Bubba

Ironically, wouldn’t Medicaid have covered this? We appear to have bureaucrats here who are blissfully unaware of the existence of biggest health care program for the poor there is.

If it didn’t involve a real person, this one would be worthy of Monty Python. “we won’t cover a few hundred bucks for a drug, but we’ll cover thousands for hospice care.”

Yeah, financially responsible my ***.
BothPartiesStink

The Drug they were recommending was $4K a month. Hospice care is cheap.

“Tarceva, the drug that Wagner’s oncologist prescribed, costs $4,000 a month”
BothPartiesStink

The Oregon Health Plan is the only SANE publicly funded health plan in the country. It is the most fiscally prudent and gets the most for the money.

The plan realizes that it can’t pay for everything and pays for the things that are successful and affordable with the money available. Are the decisions hard? yes. But unless you are Obama and want to take care of everyone regardless of cost, You should cheer on the Oregon Health Plan.

There are a few things you forgot to mention.

1) The woman was dying of lung cancer. More than likely due to smoking.

2) Th woman was still alive due to the Oregon Health plan paying for her cancer treatment in the first place.

3) the Oregon health plan is only for people with no insurance.

4) Oregon taxes are “middle of the road nationally”. So the plan isn’t that great but not that expensive either.

I am not a huge fan of insurance for all but if the US is going to do it. The Oregon Model is the best one.
http://bullwinkleblog.com/ Bullwinkle

1) The woman was dying of lung cancer. More than likely due to smoking.

By that reasoning if she was suffering from AIDS she should just be allowed to die since it was self-inflicted (more than likely). More than likely you are would want care no matter what the likely cause of your ill health was, no matter your age or illness or its cause. More than likely I’d feel like whatever the cause you wouldn’t deserve it.
BothPartiesStink

They never say if the woman was over 65 or not. So no idea about Medicare.
BothPartiesStink

Bull,

You sound like a raving liberal! Actually, last time I checked advanced AIDS care is also not covered under the Oregon Health Plan. The rule is if the treatment has more than a under a 5% chance of being effective in 5 years they pay for it.

Given limited resources and unlimited demand, tough decisions need to be made. The Oregon health plan does just that.

BPS
http://bullwinkleblog.com/ Bullwinkle

If you somehow think I’m a raving Liberal you are much stupider than I imagined. I’d leave you out on the ice so quick your idiot ass wouldn’t know what froze it. I was pointong out your extremely flawed LIBERAL reasoning that Oregon somehow has sane health care policy. MORON.
BothPartiesStink

Bull,

Raving liberals want to take care of everyone regardless of how the person got into the situation. The conservative view SHOULD be if you caused the problem (or optional HC), you should pay. HIV, Lung Cancer, abortion, fertility, face lifts, sex change, etc. should not be subsidized by other people through insurance.

So yeah, paying for Lung cancer treatment for a smoker seems to be a waste of tax payer dollars.

BPS
BothPartiesStink

I don’t work for the Oregon Health Plan. I just help pay for it since I live in Oregon. The one thing that was interesting about the link was

“the savings were as large as 17 percent for patients with aggressive tumors such as lung cancer.”

This lady had lung cancer and while the program isn’t always perfect. It is still the best system I have seen to provide some benefit to the poor without bankrupting the government.
BothPartiesStink

So what do you suggest they do?

1) Pay for everything and bankrupt the government?

2) Pay for nothing and let her die earlier?
http://sayanythingblog.com robport

It’s a tough question, isn’t it?

My problem with government-run health care is that it lowers the quality of care to the lowest common denominator. As you pointed out, the government has a finite amount of resources to expend on health care. Thus the government must control the amount of health care citizens receive.

For the individual, that usually means things like waiting lists. Shortages. Or, in some instances, outright denials.

A free-market system allows people to get all the health care they can afford. Of course, this presents a problem for people who can’t afford any health care. But if we remember that a) most Americans aren’t dirt poor b) all industries including the health care industry tend to price their goods and services in order to maximize their customer bases and c) most people who are dirt poor are that way due to their own choices and lifestyles this becomes less problematic.

Neither way is perfect, but a free market system is a lot less bad.

Of course, this wasn’t so much intended as a critique of the Oregon system – which is ok in terms of helping people who can’t help themselves – but rather a shining example of why we shouldn’t want the sort of universal system Democrats have been trying to shove down our throats for years.
http://sayanythingblog.com robport

The Oregon Health Plan is the only SANE publicly funded health plan in the country.

If this is what you call sanity, you must be crazy.

SayAnythingBlog.com

Oregon State Health Care Plan Won’t Treat Woman’s Cancer But Will Pay For Her Suicide

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