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Years of paying expensive healthcare insurance premiums down the toilet.
All for nothing. Instead of healthcare when you need it most, the company offers to pay for you to die.
2) Insurance companies and medicaid (the OHP was Oregon's version of medicaid) refuse to pay for expensive treatments, whether a patient is living in a state that has an assisted suicide law or not. It's one of the reasons we're unhappy with the current state of affairs, remember?
3) The OHP should not have pointed out the availability of assisted suicide in the same letter as refusing to pay for the medication. It would be a rare Oregon resident who did not know about it already.
"What do patients like Wagner really understand about the "last hope" treatments their doctors offer? Do doctors inform patients of the true statistical chance these therapies will prolong life, or the chance of toxic side effects that diminish the quality of the short life that remains? Might Wagner have been better served, and perhaps even lived longer, if her doctors had referred her to hospice instead of recommending a drug so toxic and so unlikely to extend her life? How many times do patients lose out on the real hope and comfort hospice offers because they are encouraged to grasp for the small hope of largely ineffective chemotherapy? Do financial incentives play a role in whether physicians recommend long-shot chemotherapy instead of comprehensive comfort care?"
Don't listen to that dumb doctor, we are the state of Oregon and we know best. Kill yourself, it's legal.
Sounds to me like some people were embarrassed by the incident.
Years of paying expensive healthcare insurance premiums down the toilet.
All for nothing. Instead of healthcare when you need it most, the company offers to pay for you to die.
They shouldn't refuse life saving surgeries, but they certainly should cover assisted suicides. Our society would be much better off if people suffering from terminal illnesses could choose to end their lives with dignity & on their own terms.
Problem is, when does that "choice" become an obligation or something to be encouraged?
"What do patients like Wagner really understand about the "last hope" treatments their doctors offer? Do doctors inform patients of the true statistical chance these therapies will prolong life, or the chance of toxic side effects that diminish the quality of the short life that remains? Might Wagner have been better served, and perhaps even lived longer, if her doctors had referred her to hospice instead of recommending a drug so toxic and so unlikely to extend her life? How many times do patients lose out on the real hope and comfort hospice offers because they are encouraged to grasp for the small hope of largely ineffective chemotherapy? Do financial incentives play a role in whether physicians recommend long-shot chemotherapy instead of comprehensive comfort care?"
Don't listen to that dumb doctor, we are the state of Oregon and we know best. Kill yourself, it's legal.
Sounds to me like some people were embarrassed by the incident.
OK.
So you must be willing to pay much higher insurance premiums and much higher taxes in order for dying people to receive any treatment they desire, no matter how expensive it is and/or how little chance it has of helping.
Life saving surgery should never be denies. It will be, however, so long as the force that drives the insurance industry is profit.
Get the private sector out of insurance. How's that for a catchphrase?
It has a ring to it.
Lifesaving medical care is often delayed or denied. Nothing new there.
If the treatment is expensive, there always seems to be some fine print, a cap, a pre-existing condition, a late payment, non-covered procedure, experimental treatment, ... I can't tell you how many people have had to fight not only a serious medical condition in their family but the insurance company as well.
Those decisions will still need to be made even with single-payer.
When to disconnect the defibrillator has broken more than one heart.
You talk like physician-assisted suicide is a bad thing. After seeing what my cousin went through fighting pancreatic cancer for a year before succumbing in horrible agony (the Dr. kept her on very low pain meds because he was afraid she'd get addicted --her screams of pain kept her sister's family awake all night sometimes) if I got a terminal diagnosis I'd be on the plane to Oregon the next day. I don't intend to die in agony like my cousin.
So you must be willing to pay much higher insurance premiums and much higher taxes in order for dying people to receive any treatment they desire, no matter how expensive it is and/or how little chance it has of helping.
Good for you!
Actually Barbara Wagner got the treatment free from the drug manufacturer. Feel better?
I'm currently paying higher premiums to treat illegals and pay other people's subsidies ...
You talk like physician-assisted suicide is a bad thing. After seeing what my cousin went through fighting pancreatic cancer for a year before succumbing in horrible agony (the Dr. kept her on very low pain meds because he was afraid she'd get addicted --her screams of pain kept her sister's family awake all night sometimes) if I got a terminal diagnosis I'd be on the plane to Oregon the next day. I don't intend to die in agony like my cousin.
You mean the ability to die with dignity, instead of untold pain and suffering from whatever lethal issue you have? Yes. Yes we did.
Meanwhile in other states your lethal disease will rob you of your dignity, and inflict untold pain as for example your metastatic pancreatic cancer in those states (invariably fatal) eats your bones, and can cause metastatic spinal compression.
Not all Dr's in Oregon are willing to proscribe lethal drugs. ALL of my Dr's are willing to, or I will find a different one.
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--her screams of pain kept her sister's family awake all night sometimes) if I got a terminal diagnosis I'd be on the plane to Oregon the next day. I don't intend to die in agony like my cousin.
