Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Simple question: Are poor, uninsured alcoholics given liver transplants in the US? If yes, then we have a better system than England - case closed. If no, then a single anecdote from England proves squat and the OP is just fear mongering.
So answer, please.
Scroll up and check out my link, alcoholics are NOT given transplants whether they are poor and uninsured or not. They fall OUTSIDE the criteria established transplanting organs such as kidneys and livers.
This is a Republican who is mad that McCain isn't in office and is trying to find anything he or she can to make it seem our country is headed down the toilet as if Bush hadn't already flushed us 20 or 30 times before Obama got into office.
Simple question: Are poor, uninsured alcoholics given liver transplants in the US? If yes, then we have a better system than England - case closed. If no, then a single anecdote from England proves squat and the OP is just fear mongering.
So answer, please.
I answered it in post #11. My guess is those insisting on an answer to a question that was answered can't understand the answer anyway. What difference does it make if the transplant would or would not be covered here. Isn't UHC suppose to make things better, it didn't in this case. So why not slow down evaluate, debate and then vote. Not this rushing 1,000 page plus bill through congress that no one has read. Past experience shows hysteria like Obama crates results in poor outcomes.
Last edited by shorebaby; 07-20-2009 at 09:41 PM..
It also seems to me your kind dismiss his fate because you imagine it happens here.
Oh, it happens in the US alright.
All first-world countries share the problem that led to this young man's untimely demise: There are more people needing transplants than there are organs available. Socialized medicine has nothing to do with it. You know it, or you wouldn't be dancing around the subject. Little-Acorn knows it, or he would have been back.
You're only fooling the easily duped by using this case as a scary example.
Scroll up and check out my link, alcoholics are NOT given transplants whether they are poor and uninsured or not. They fall OUTSIDE the criteria established transplanting organs such as kidneys and livers.
This is a Republican who is mad that McCain isn't in office and is trying to find anything he or she can to make it seem our country is headed down the toilet as if Bush hadn't already flushed us 20 or 30 times before Obama got into office.
A 22-year-old alcoholic has died after being refused a life-saving liver transplant because he was too ill to leave hospital and prove he could stay sober.
Gary with his mother just days before he died. Pic: The Sunday Times
Gary Reinbach, who died in hospital on Monday from a severe case of liver cirrhosis, did not qualify for a donor liver under strict NHS rules.
---------------------------------------
Coming soon, to a health care system near you!
Presently our government swears up and down that this will never happen. ALL patients who need treatment, will get it.
But how long will that last, once costs start to rise? (Have you ever seen ANY government program where costs didn't start rising, and quickly?)
And when they do, and people finally start calling their Congressmen and refusing to support all the new taxes the government says they need, what then?
How long will it be before government starts deciding, that in extreme cases where people's own behavior has caused the damage to their bodies, that they can no longer pay to fix it?
And people look around, and find that there are no longer any alternatives, because private practitioners have been unable to compete with tax-money-subsidized "Universal Health Care" that penalizes people for going outside the system, and have gone out of business?
He was a drunk. He destroyed the liver he had. Too bad.
You anti-UK UHC people should read this link. In fact, everyone should.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Katiana
First off, you didn't answer my question. You don't know what criteria are used in this country to select patients for liver transplants. Here is what one medical center in California uses:
" For patients with the diagnosis of alcohol dependence or abuse, the referring physician will ask the patient to sign an alcohol contract and participate in alcohol recovery while awaiting transplantation. Only patients having psychosocial factors predicting long-term sobriety are accepted for transplantation."
There is a lot more, including a section about older patients.
How, pray tell, did you think patients were selected for liver transplants?
You can't just go out and buy a liver to transplant. You all do know there are waitlists in the US for people to receive transplants, and some sort of selection criteria must be set up?
Location: Jonquil City (aka Smyrna) Georgia- by Atlanta
16,259 posts, read 24,774,755 times
Reputation: 3587
Quote:
Originally Posted by geeoro
OK now you have read the sensational post..here are the FACTS about this case.
Gary Reinbach was refused a liver transplant after HE refused to stop his drinking. He had cirrhosis of the Liver caused by extreme alcoholism. He was offered a transplant on condition that he stopped drinking as it would be futile to give him a new Liver if he continued abusing it. The rule is that if you make a honest attempt to stop drinking you will be given a transplant. The decision was his. He knew that if he didn't stop drinking he would not get a transplant. He point blank refused to stop drinking so the offer of a transplant was removed so that the Liver could be used on someone who also needed this valuable liver and would be prepared to take the medication required and not abuse the new liver.
Liver transplants are performed on alcoholics all the time in the UK but livers are valuable to many who need the transplant and it would be wrong to deny someone a liver in favour of someone who needs it because of self inflicted problems and with absolutely no desire to keep his new liver healthy or possibly not be in a state to take the anti rejection drugs.
The truth is far from what was trying to be implied here.
Kind of the way I see it too.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
