The Sick Side Of Health Care
Four years ago, a 27 year old woman was suffering from kidney failure as a result of systemic lupus. Her father, a healthy 49 year old, was able to donate one of his kidneys to her. She’s now doing great – and he has no health insurance. Both Blue Cross and Blue Shield rejected his applications for health coverage, apparently – the Blues aren’t explaining – because of fears of his future health with only one kidney.
This has particular resonance for me because the CLB put on a panel in the spring about altruistic donation with an altruistic kidney donor and an altruistic blood-forming stem cell donor (the latter donated through apheresis rather than through bone marrow donation), as well as a transplant surgeon. (We’ll get the audio recording up soon and link it here.)
In what world do we punish a father for donating a kidney his daughter by taking away his own health coverage? I suppose I should have said, less rhetorically, “in what country”? Happily, the recently upheld health reform legislation guarantees the father coverage. Of course, having survived (barely) the Supreme Court doesn’t mean it will survive the political process. (Stanford Law School, 2012.)
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