There is a piece on the rec list about the fact that people without insurance are less likely to get organs than to donate.
Does this suck? Yes.
The diary tells a true story. Some of the comments amount to a stoning of MDs. I don't believe this was the diarist's intent, but the comments are intense.
This problem is not part of some evil doctor conspiracy. It is because the primary criterion for judging who gets an organ transplant is how long the organ may last in the host. That is a fact. If you want to argue the criterion should be different, go ahead.
This is a major ethics issue of our time.
Any new contributions to this discourse are welcome.
Organ transplant (except in very rare circumstances) requires a lifetime of immunosuppression. That includes many very expensive drugs that have to be taken daily for life. These drugs are regularly adjusted for years and are very often new (non-generic) expensive medications. If the government is willing to pay for that in the uninsured then, the uninsured would be more able to get organ transplants.
I am all for the government paying for it. I am for a single payer, universal healthcare. I find this system ghastly. However, it isn't because the MDs are evil.
It is because organs are rare, and they are first given to people in whom doctors believe they will last the longest.
There are many things that contribute to this. Insurance (including medicaid) is one, age is another, family stability and support is another, a certain amount of time (6 months) free of substance abuse is also a consideration for some organ transplants. (They wont give a liver transplant to someone who is actively drinking.)
These criterion are not because they define one person as better than another and therefore more worthy of survival. That would be evil and immoral. It is because they believe those issues contribute to the survival of the organ and that is the only moral basis on which they can choose who gets one and who doesn't, because unfortunately, the need is greater than the supply.
This is a quote form the rec list diary.
"The decision on transplantation was driven, in part, by realistic concern about the patient’s inability to pay for long-term immunosuppressive therapy and to support himself during recovery."
Yea, that sucks. The whole thing sucks and people are dying of it. But that doesn't make doctors murderers.
THE GOVERNMENT PAWNS OFF RESPONSIBILITY FOR UNFAIRNESS IN THE MEDICAL CARE SYSTEM ON TO DOCTORS ALONE.
LITERATE, EDUCATED PEOPLE SHOULD NOT BE FALLING FOR THIS RUSE.
Making doctors into punching bags for the unfairness of the healthcare system is an old GOP ploy and I'm a little surprised to see such enthusiasm for it in the comments of that diary.
The evil and negligence of the government is placed on the shoulders of doctors and they are forced to take the heat for it and thus passively defend the system. That's how we get a commenter in the other diary calling doctors murderers.
The fact that this is somehow not illegal is perhaps the strongest possible argument for drastic change in healthcare, starting with removing these murderers from the business yesterday.
here's a link to the piece.
I do not accept this.
MDs did not create the reality of the health care system. Yes, their PR sucks, and yes they could have taken more forceful lobbying stances but usually they don't have a lot of free time. MDs are not responsible for the flaws of the healthcare policy.
Looking at the comments I am stunned at how many people were willing to fall for this straw horse and once again beat up on the MDs for failures in the healthcare system.
Doctors work with their hands. That is the only way they make money. A medical degree is worth a lot more money OUTSIDE of clinical practice. So the next time a group starts trashing the profession and calling MDs murderers for the government's healthcare policy or saying they are only "in it for the money" think before joining in the mob stoning.