xocetaceans
xocetaceans's JournalCigna denied a cancer patient's lung transplant. Now the insurer says it was an 'error.'
Ken Alltucker
USA TODAY
Published 4:00 p.m. ET Nov. 24, 2023 | Updated: 11:02 a.m. ET Nov. 26, 2023
A large health insurance company said it made an error when it denied coverage this week to a 47-year-old woman as she prepared to undergo a double-lung transplant to treat her lung cancer.
The woman, Carole Taylor, was summoned to Vanderbilt University Medical Center Tuesday when the hospital found a donor match for a double lung transplant. As the transplant team prepared her for the procedure, she was informed the insurance company, Cigna Healthcare, had denied the transplant.
Instead of getting a pair of donor lungs, Taylor was sent home and deactivated from the transplant waitlist.
But following a public outcry on the social media site X and Taylor's own words describing the ordeal on Substack, Cigna Healthcare said the insurer now will cover the transplant.
. . .
Read more: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2023/11/24/cigna-denies-vanderbilt-lung-transplant-for-cancer-patient/71678533007/
However, it should be noted that this sort of situation seems to have occurred before:
Calif. family says it will sue medical insurer delaying a lifesaving surgery.
By ABC News
December 21, 2007, 8:29 AM
Dec. 21, 2007--The family of a California teenager who died awaiting a liver transplant said they would sue the insurer whom they blame for their daughter's death.
...
Cigna appears to have reversed its decision to deny the transplant after about 150 teenagers and nurses protested outside its Glendale office Thursday. "Protestors are here, the war is here," Hilda Sarkisyan, the girl's mother, told the group hours before her daughter's death. "We have a war here."
The Sarkisyan family claims that Cigna first agreed to the liver transplant surgery and had secured a match weeks ago. After the teen, who was battling leukemia, received a bone marrow transplant from her brother, however, she suffered a lung infection, and the insurer backed away from what it felt had become too risky a procedure.
"They're the ones who caused this. They're the one that told us to go there, and they would pay for the transplant," Hilda Sarkisyan said.
...
Further information on the outcome of that attempt to address the seemingly related 2007 case in court is at this LA Times link:
Note: Earlier, I had posted this mistakenly in LBN, so my apologies to those who saw it there. I was not careful with the original sourcing--MSN posted it today in accordance with its "updated" timestamp, but the story was originally published on 24 Nov 2023.
My thoughts are that simply that insurance companies harboring a profit motive should not be part of healthcare. Like education, healthcare should be available for the good of the public individually and society generally.
TWiV Special: Toppling the anti-vaxxer pyramid with 'flu-shot cheerleader' Desiree Townsend
This is an informative discussion with a person whose life was affected by the anti-vaxx industry. She discusses her autoimmune condition and how that industry created a narrative to mislead her. Some of the details of her discussion are worth hearing from a scientific point of view, because I think that they are nice illustrations of ideas related to the consequences of protein folding.
TWiV 1026: Debunking RFK Jr.'s vaccine funk with Dan Wilson
Admittedly, this is a long video, but RFK Jr. needs the debunking.
LIVE: House hearing on coronavirus pandemic, 'Investigating the Proximal Origin of a Cover Up'
Of course, the GOP is pursuing its on-going waste of time in trying to demonize scientists (Fauci et al) and win political points with its ignorant base - instead of trying to prepare for future pandemics.
Also, I would have used C-SPAN's neutral presentation of the video of this hearing instead of Yahoo Finance's live stream, but I could not find a link into C-SPAN's live video. (Perhaps there is one, but I don't know that one can link to C-SPAN's live video in this manner.)
Here is a C-SPAN link to the hearing:
On CNN, Trump was as delusional and deceitful as he ever has been...maybe even more so.
It has, yet once again, been made quite clear that he belongs in a jail cell for life and nowhere near the Oval Office.
Perhaps, CNN gave the world the gift of a reminder (not that many actually needed such a reminder) that Trump is an absolute threat to the US and needs to be stopped cold legally or at the ballot box if that orange moron happens to make it that far.
I hope that CNN has seen enough and no longer platforms that insurrectionist traitor or any of his surrogates and that the DOJ gets off its collective ass and does something significant for a change. It's not as if Trump's crimes are so breathtakingly subtle or complex that he cannot be charged. For one, Trump openly fomented an insurrection, after all.
(It's hard to believe that Santos actually has been charged before Trump. I'll bet Santos thought he had at least until the middle of 2025 to skate.)
And again Trump did the very same thing in that town hall interview as he did the entire year before the 2020 election: he kept pushing the idea that if he does not win an election, the election has been rigged. That's right: he is preparing Insurrection 2.0, in case all of you at the DOJ missed it.
Also, for those of you in law enforcement who care about the country and each other, Trump painted a large target (one clearly visible to all our precious stochastic terrorists on the right wing) on that officer who defended the Capitol by shooting and killing Ashli Babbitt: she is neither a patriot nor a victim. She chose to invade the Capitol and found out the hard way that certain actions are not allowed. Fuck any delusional morons who hold her up as a hero of any sort.
So, yes, Trump is a threat to the US. Hopefully, everyone is again well aware of that fact.
(Lastly, E. Jean Carroll should sue Trump again for his further defamation of her during the town hall. Trump seems to have been too stupid to learn his lesson the first time.)
Honest Government Ad Reserve Bank of Australia
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Reserve Banks across the world seem to have very similar philosophies
regarding inflation and what to do about it.
Education is neither a product nor a "personal" investment as much as the GOP wants it to be.
Neither should it be designed to "serve" to students nor should any students have to pay for it (for doing the work to get one's education is difficult enough in terms of time and dedication to the subject). A saner country would provide universal free access with stipends so that its young people could achieve their educational dreams without incurring debt. It would be for the good of the community as a whole to have more knowledgeable citizens.
By COLLIN BINKLEY
...
“It’s completely defeating for some students,” said Jessie Ryan, vice president of the Campaign for College Opportunity, a research group. “These systems have been designed to work for colleges and educators, but they haven’t been designed to work for students.”
...
https://apnews.com/article/bachelor-degree-community-college-transfer-credits-cec0154f260c130fbbfcb593de77e4da
Here is an interview with the author of the new book in the "A Very Short Introduction" series.
by Michael D. Gordin
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