Insurance companies denied treatment to patients, offered to pay for assisted suicide, doctor claims

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by DKR, Jun 30, 2017.


  1. DKR

    DKR Raconteur of the first stripe

    (Insurance companies denied treatment to patients, offered to pay for assisted suicide, doctor claims)

    Quote from story:
    "A Nevada physician says insurance companies in states where assisted suicide is legal have refused to cover expensive, life-saving treatments for his patients but have offered to help them end their lives instead.

    Brian Callister, associate professor of internal medicine at the University of Nevada, said he tried to transfer two patients to California and Oregon for procedures not performed at his hospital. Representatives from two different insurance companies denied those transfer requests by phone, he said.

    “And in both cases, the insurance medical director said to me, ‘Brian, we’re not going to cover that procedure or the transfer, but would you consider assisted suicide?’ ” Dr. Callister told The Washington Times."

    Better hope your Doc isn't one of those..

    I won't live in or visit a place that legalizes this.... Talk about the ultimate slippery slope.
     
  2. Legion489

    Legion489 Rev. 2:19 Banned

    Obamma Care all over again. Go read it.
     
  3. Dunerunner

    Dunerunner Brewery Monkey Moderator

    I agree. There should be choice. Treatment or dirt nap, your choice.
     
  4. duane

    duane Monkey+++

    I have no problem with choice of level of care, just with choice of who will pay. Insurance, or government, no treatment is free and we all pay. The system has got totally out of control and about 20 % of our total USA economy now goes for medical care with little real different outcome than some countries that spend a fraction as much. For most of us, the amount spent on medical care for the last couple of years of our life will exceed the amount spent on the rest of our lives. I have seen people my age, 79, get hundred thousand plus hip surgeries and never walk, or lie in expensive intensive care in a coma for weeks waiting to die from cancer. I don't like to see the words "death panels", but I wonder if the same people would be complaining if they were responsible for the bills. Lets tax the churches for medical care and refugee care, or not pay the doctors or hospitals for end of life care and see what they would do.
     
  5. T. Riley

    T. Riley Monkey+++

    If killing a healthy unborn is within America's moral limits why would killing the sick, old and deformed not be also? Where is the line?
     
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  6. oldawg

    oldawg Monkey+++

    [applaud][applaud][applaud]
     
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  7. DKR

    DKR Raconteur of the first stripe

    This isn't something new.

    eu·gen·ics
    yo͞oˈjeniks/
    noun
    noun: eugenics
    1. the science of improving a human population by controlled breeding to increase the occurrence of desirable heritable characteristics. Developed largely by Francis Galton as a method of improving the human race, it fell into disfavor only after the perversion of its doctrines by the Nazis.
    I wrote a book dealing with this set of topics - A Man Out of Place.

    The Eugenics movement in the US was a horror that was well supported and well funded. The Press being what is was then.

    A 1937 Fortune magazine poll found that 2/3 of respondents supported eugenic sterilization of "mental defectives", 63% supported sterilization of criminals, and only 15% opposed both. They left out who got to choose. These were mostly people institutionalized for various mental issues.

    In the 1970s, several activists and women's rights groups discovered several physicians to be performing coerced sterilizations of specific ethnic groups of society. All were abuses of poor, nonwhite, or mentally retarded women, while no abuses against white or middle-class women were recorded

    Several court cases such as Madrigal v. Quilligan, a class action suit regarding forced or coerced postpartum sterilization of Latina women following cesarean sections, and Relf v. Weinberger, the sterilization of two young black girls by tricking their illiterate mother into signing a waiver, helped bring to light some of the widespread abuses of sterilization supported by federal funds

    (Eugenics in the United States - Wikipedia)

    Concerns about eugenics arose in the African American community after the implementation of the Negro Project of 1939, which was proposed by Margaret Sanger who was the founder of Planned Parenthood.


    Why did the Eugenic movement go underground? (Oh yes, it still exists)

    After the eugenics movement was well established in the United States, it spread to Germany. California eugenicists began producing literature promoting eugenics and sterilization and sending it overseas to German scientists and medical professionals. By 1933, California had subjected more people to forceful sterilization than all other U.S. states combined. The forced sterilization program engineered by the Nazis was partly inspired by California's.

    The Rockefeller Foundation helped develop and fund various German eugenics programs, including the one that Josef Mengele worked in before he went to Auschwitz.

    Upon returning from Germany in 1934, where more than 5,000 people per month were being forcibly sterilized, the California eugenics leader C. M. Goethe bragged to a colleague:

    You will be interested to know that your work has played a powerful part in shaping the opinions of the group of intellectuals who are behind Hitler in this epoch-making program. Everywhere I sensed that their opinions have been tremendously stimulated by American thought . . . I want you, my dear friend, to carry this thought with you for the rest of your life, that you have really jolted into action a great government of 60 million people.


    So Eugenics isn't really gone, it's just hiding under a rock at "Planned Parenthood", and any organization that promotes State supported "suicide" (AKA Euthanasia).

    No thanks.
     
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  8. Bandit99

    Bandit99 Monkey+++ Site Supporter+

    I believe that it is up to the individual to chose if they wish to live or die. It is their life and their choice. I do know that if I become seriously ill to the point that it will threaten to eliminate my acquired wealth leaving my surviving wife homeless and destitute - well - that is not going to happen. Having said that, I find it degusting if this event is true. I hope it did not. But, @T. Riley composed the answer perfectly, "if killing a healthy unborn is within America's moral limits why would killing the sick, old and deformed not be also" So, in all honesty, I am not that shocked by it for it comes down to the 'bottom line' once again. We Americans seem to consistently and constantly confuse Medical Insurance with Medical Care, chalk and cheese...
     
    Last edited: Jul 1, 2017
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  9. BTPost

    BTPost Stumpy Old Fart,Deadman Walking, Snow Monkey Moderator

    The line is "You can NOT kill voters...." Oh, you can let the Die from neglect, but you can NOT kill them....." Even the Democrats will go along with that.....
     
    T. Riley likes this.
  10. T. Riley

    T. Riley Monkey+++

    I do not disagree. But, when an insurance company says "you are too old and you no longer have anything to contribute, so paying for your life saving treatment is out of the question. But, we will pay for you to take your own life so you will not be a burden to society, your family and us.", then this is not a choice left up to the patient. That's the choice of a "death panel". I do understand there is a point where heroic effort to prolong a failing life is not a good decision. I saw my mother make the decision for herself a few years back. She had colon cancer at 83 and she decided to starve herself slowly rather than undergo treatment. It was her decision, I did not like it. But, I respected her right to decide for herself. She did not commit suicide, she chose not to prolong the inevitable.
     
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  11. Bandit99

    Bandit99 Monkey+++ Site Supporter+

    Yes, you are absolutely correct. And, for what it is worth, I hope if the time comes and I have to choose that I will be as brave as your mother. I will try. For, it is no one's choice but mine - certainly no damn insurance company and, in fact, the denial of treatment in my mind is no less than murder. Insurance companies need to be taken out of the medical equation - completely. And, I know I sound like a broken record but Medical Care is not a business...but Medical Insurance is. It's that simple. They are in it for the profit not for a service to society or any altruistic reason - only profit.
     
  12. OldDude49

    OldDude49 Just n old guy

    Were we not told this was coming? So what is the surprise?

    letting them know that you feel outrage at this kinda thing... is perhaps the best response to such things?

    that and tellin em you're taking your business elsewhere... and requesting they be somehow put out of business?
     
  13. chelloveck

    chelloveck Diabolus Causidicus



    I think I understand what you're getting at though am not quite sure whether you meant 'Medicare' / 'Medicaid' instead of medical care, which is an activity that could be a commercial enterprise or a NGO non-profit (aka charity) medical service.

    Medical Insurance is a business which exists to turn a profit for its shareholders, and gladly accepts premiums from the healthy; and niggardly pays for the health costs of the chronically ill, especially in the case of end of life patients who are a severe drain on the profitability of a stock exchange listed health insurance company. The milk of human kindness doesn't flow very freely from the teat of an actuarial assessment predicting future profit drain.
     
  14. 3M-TA3

    3M-TA3 Cold Wet Monkey

    They aren't all bad, my Mother's insurance paid for a new heart valve operation when she was 92. My father had brain surgery after he had a major stroke at 80. In both cases the insurance companies approved and ponied up the vast majority of the costs.

    The situation was made much worse by the ACA which has made many areas a losing proposition for insurance companies. Since so many people can't pay the enormous premiums they only get insurance when they are already ill. There are now several large areas in the US when all the insurance companies have pulled out completely because of that. Everybody birches about profits, but without profits you can't stay in business. BTW, who do you think those shareholders are that those companies answer to? The vast majority are common citizens whose retirements, 401-K, or TSP have been invested there.

    We were FAR better off before the ACA wrecking ball was forced down our throats. "We have to pass the bill before we can see what's inside" and nobody raised an eyebrow.
     
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