Miscellaneous

Those Wily HMOs

Out in Oregon, the state-run health plan has figured out a novel way to help cut down on expenses. Kill the patient! It seems that, in some cases, the health plan won't cover expensive medical treatments, but it will cover physician assisted suicide. Why? Probably cause it's cheap.

The conflict came to light in a recent report in The Register-Guard of Eugene. The newspaper described the sad plight of Barbara Wagner, a 64-year-old Springfield woman with lung cancer.

After her oncologist prescribed a cancer drug that would cost $4,000 a month, the newspaper reported, "Wagner was notified that the Oregon Health Plan wouldn't cover the treatment, but that it would cover palliative, or comfort, care, including, if she chose, doctor-assisted suicide."

That presents an unacceptable conflict. The state health program should not be in the position of denying chemotherapy to terminally ill patients while offering to pay the cost of helping them die.

I don't see a conflict here! I just see a creative solution to curing this woman from cancer. It's like my old man used to say whenever I told him my head hurt: "Well cut that thing off, boy." It would've been so much cheaper than a lifetime's worth of aspirin.

Full post as published by Quiz Law on July 30, 2008 (boomark / email).