Originally Posted by herring_RN
PacifiCare agrees to pay for Nick Colombo's treatment
More and more patients dissatisfied with decisions by their insurance companies are seeking to exert public pressure from rallies to letter writing campaigns.
It's hard to know what effect they have. Some medical ethicists say allocation of health care should be determined by expected outcomes, not lobbying efforts.
The matter is more complicated in cases like Nick's, where doctors disagree on the best course of treatment
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHNPb...eature=related
As far as I'm concerned, the whole problem with this is that with the private insurance companies, decisions are made behind closed doors. There is no transparency when it comes to how decisions about who receives care and who won't are made. Is it all financial? Is it based on outcomes? We never know.
In a publicly funded universal plan, there would be cases that would be refused, but we would all know which ones they would be because such things would be decided in an open manner.
This is just one more problem area of our health care system that screams out for single-payer, universal health care and an end to us all being screwed over by the private insurers.
Would you like to comment?
