Becuase Everything Else Sucks

Justice Delayed, is Justice Denied

By Manila Ryce
Published Saturday, December 22nd, 2007, 4:16 am
Filed under: Videos: Political, Videos: News, Human Rights, Health, Videos, Economic, US Politics

Below is a video made by Nataline Sarkisyan’s brother, Bedig, just days before she passed away.

WPvideo 1.10

Chances are you’re aware of the story of Nataline Sarkisyan, the 17-year-old girl who died Thursday night just after CIGNA reversed their decision not to pay for a liver transplant her doctor’s said she needed. In other words, CIGNA murdered her. If nothing else, perhaps her case can show that the problem with health care in this country isn’t with people being uninsured, but with the insurance companies themselves who make money by denying claims.

Shame on CIGNA and shame on every presidential candidate, with the exception of Gravel and Kucinich, for supporting a system which lets people like Nataline die so the rich can get richer. Profit should have no place in such decisions. It’s infuriating that Kucinich is the only candidate with a plan for a not-for-profit health care system. The “top tier” Democratic candidates want universal insurance instead. They have blood on their hands.

This is another case where corporations have more rights than citizens. We will be mandated to buy insurance, but insurance companies are not mandated to approve of procedures our doctors say we need. Tragedies like this one will continue to occur everyday unless HR 676 is passed. Health care is a basic human right which the richest country in the world has denied its citizens for far too long.

People are dying and it’s not okay. Tell your members of congress to support HR 676, and stop voting for phony fucking liberals. There are only two running. They are your only choices.

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4 Responses to “Justice Delayed, is Justice Denied”

  1. This is an extremely sad story and I am in total agreement with you that this country must offer its citizens universal healthcare from cradle to grave. However, even with universal healthcare, some entity has to provide oversight of the medical profession. Yes, insurance companies have a profit motive, but so do hospitals, clinics, administrators and doctors. I am not in favor of allowing physicians completely free rein to practice medicine any way they see fit regardless of cost. At some point, hard decisions have to be made about the limits of medical intervention. Perhaps a liver transplant would have given this girl a chance to beat her cancer. On the other hand, she may not have been the best candidate for this procedure considering how sick she was. The point is that these kinds of decisions don’t disappear under universal health care systems, they just get shifted to some other decision-making body that also has to balance the reality of cost v. benefit. Who, or what killed this girl is a complicated, tangled story. CIGNA for holding up the liver transplant? Leukemia? Or, the corporate polluters who are dumping crap into our air and water that may be causing cancers like leukemia? A lot of people, a lot of corporations, drug companies, medical imaging companies, surgeons, doctors, radiologists, made a great deal of money off of this girl, her family and their insurance company before she died at a tragically young age. Every single one of us is paying the price. Universal health care is a moral imperative because it will provide access to the health care system for everyone, regardless of income, race, class or age. But, I don’t see how cases like Nataline’s will be resolved or avoided under a different health care delivery decision.

    threadingwater
    12/22/07 at 5:37 am

  2. Insurance companies are money making enterprises, not part of the government. Until you can change that or at least place rigid controls that control frivolous lawsuits and unjustified payouts on one hand with methods of making maximal profit on the other, you will have far too many situations like this.

    That being said, I do not defend the insurance companies. I think they need to be held accountable, but neither do I agree with multi-million payoffs unless justified by serious wrongdoing on the part of doctors or insurance carriers.

    Comrade Kevin
    12/22/07 at 6:22 pm

  3. This is exactly why Tommy Douglas gave us Canadians a single-payer pubic healthcare system back in the 1950s and ’60s. Now we’re in danger of having it eroded by the privatization nuts, who think it will “improve choice”. To them I only have one thing to say: What choice did SHE have?

    Give CIGNA the finger for me and 31 million other nervous Canucks.

    Bina
    12/23/07 at 9:40 pm

  4. Urp…should read “public healthcare system”–although our pubes are also covered, thank Goddess. (What a blooper. No, I haven’t been drinking too much eggnog–YET.)

    Bina
    12/23/07 at 9:42 pm

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