Here's Your Death Panel

Will your child be next?

Many of you already know that, for obvious reasons, I fully support most "medically necessary for life" transplants, all stem cell research, and signing your donor cards.
Having received a 'heads up' from one of my groups, I have to post this here also.
 
      “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,...



From crazypeacetrain:

An Arizona man was denied a liver transplant while waiting at the hospital. He was a Medicaid patient and couldn’t come up with the $200K need
ed to do the surgery, since the state cut their coverage of the procedure as of October 1st.
If he had gotten sicker sooner, he would have been covered.

The liver went to another patient, despite Francisco Felix being highest on the UNOS list.

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AHCCCS budget cuts cost Phoenix-area man his chance at liver transplant

A Laveen liver-disease patient missed his opportunity for an organ transplant Tuesday, becoming the most dire example yet of an Arizonan denied life-saving medical care because of budget cuts to the state's health-care system for the poor.

Francisco Felix, 32, was in the hospital ready to receive a liver that was donated to him late Monday night. But the liver went to another recipient Tuesday morning because he couldn't find $200,000 overnight to pay for the liver transplant, one of seven kinds of transplant surgery the state stopped covering Oct. 1.

Felix was the first liver-transplant patient known to be affected, but is not likely to be the last.

Of the approximately 100 Arizonans enrolled in the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System who are awaiting transplants that are no longer covered by AHCCCS, 60 of them are candidates like Felix with liver disease related to hepatitis C. Transplant is their only cure.

Last month, Goodyear leukemia patient Mark Price became a poster child for the impact of budget cuts to AHCCCS after his doctor found donors who matched his bone marrow a day after Price lost coverage. Price's story gained attention nationally and an anonymous donor later covered all costs for his surgery.

Because bone marrow comes from living donors, the donated marrow was still able to be used at a late date.

It's a different story for liver-transplant patients.

The chances of finding a liver donor are slim because these transplants usually are livers from deceased donors and the demand far exceeds the supply.

If a donor is found, the surgery must take place in less than a day.

AHCCCS patients who lost transplant coverage have been allowed to stay on the waiting list, but when a match is found they are faced with a ticking clock to come up with up to half a million dollars to pay for the procedure.

Francisco's story

Monday night, Felix's wife received a call from a family friend whose wife was nearing death and wanted to donate her liver to Felix. Their organs matched, and doctors prepared Felix for a surgery set for 10 a.m. Tuesday.

Banner Good Samaritan Medical Center gave Felix until that time to come up with the money for his surgery. His surgery, liver transplant due to complications from hepatitis C, was one AHCCCS stopped covering Oct. 1.

Despite efforts to reach out to the media and the public, the family could not raise the money. Felix was discharged from the hospital and his liver went to the next patient on the waiting list.

"It was his day today. If we had the money, someone to pay for it, he would have received the liver," said Flor, Francisco's wife. "How can people make this decision? How does one person have the right to decide who's going to live and who's not?"

There are at least 23 AHCCCS patients at Banner Good Samaritan waiting for transplants, hospital spokesman Bill Byron said.

Byron said patients must meet three criteria before receiving transplants: they must be healthy enough for a transplant procedure, they must have a network of people who can support them after surgery and they must be able to afford the surgery.

Patients who can't afford the surgery after finding a match are placed on a hold list until they can pay for it.

Flor Felix has applied to the National Transplant Assistance Fund so that the family can raise money for her husband's surgery. Byron said doctors believe Francisco will be healthy enough to receive a transplant if another match comes along within the next year or two.

According to United Network for Organ Sharing, a national non-profit that is contracted with the federal government to manage the U.S. organ-transplant system, the average wait time for a liver is 796 days. Francisco has been on the waiting list since April and only got this chance so quickly because the family friend wanted to donate to him.

AHCCCS cuts

Legislators earlier this year decided to stop paying for certain transplants based on analyses by AHCCCS.

Certain kinds of pancreas, lung and bone-marrow transplants are among those no longer covered.

AHCCCS stopped covering liver transplants for hepatitis C because of the procedure's low long-term success rate.

According to AHCCCS, studies showed that when a patient with hepatitis C receives a liver transplant, the virus can infect the new liver within 24 hours. The virus returning is the No. 1 cause of the new liver failing, according to the analysis.

But according to the national transplant organization, transplant is the best treatment option for patients with end-stage liver failure.

Political battle

Following the public reports of Price's transplant story last month, state lawmakers asked Gov. Jan Brewer to reconsider the cuts. Tuesday, a group of Democrats asked again.

But Brewer's spokesman, Paul Senseman, said the governor would not consider a special legislative session unless someone proposes how the state would make up for the $1 billion gap in the AHCCCS budget.

Senseman blames federal health-care mandates for the program's financial struggles. The federal government requires states to cover many things under the program, but transplants are not one of them.

"On multiple fronts we remain hopeful that our ability to design a sustainable and flexible service program would be restored" now that there is a Republican majority in Congress and Arizona is a part of a 20-state lawsuit against the federal government for requiring all Americans to have health insurance by 2014, Senseman said.

AHCCCS cuts were made before the federal health-care reform act passed, said Sen.-elect Kyrsten Sinema, D-Phoenix. Sinema said Brewer should use federal stimulus money to reinstate transplant cuts.

Democratic state Rep. Matt Heinz, a physician at the Tucson Medical Center, said it is contradictory to blame AHCCCS cuts on federal mandates while reasoning that transplant coverage could be cut because it is not federally required.

Rep. John Kavanagh, R-Fountain Hills, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, said he would like to revisit transplant cuts when the Legislature is back in session in January.

by Michelle Ye Hee Lee - Nov. 17, 2010 12:00 AM

The Arizona Republic

Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/2010/11/17/20101117ahcccs-budget-cuts-phoenix-man-liver-transplant.html#ixzz15mQYE6JS

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2010-11-17-arizona-cuts-liver-transplant_N.htm

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/2010/11/17/20101117ahcccs-budget-cuts-phoenix-man-liver-transplant.html

Arizona governor Jan Brewer had the gall to blame “Obamacare.”

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Know that this is only one story from just one state.

Is this what happens when your insurance changes?

What say you?

XOXO
Me

Click for more on Stem Cell Research:

Stem Cells Repair Spinal Discs Permanently!

"While the United States government, scientists and the religious right continue to fight over the moral issues involved in stem cell research, the United Kingdom has already made strides toward medical cures with stem cells."

November 16, 2010 by Dr. Mark Wiley