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Universal care fails to deliver
| Tuesday, Jul 15 2008 7:01 PM
Last Updated: Tuesday, Jul 15 2008 7:05 PM
Set up in 1994, the state-funded Oregon Health Plan promised to provide medical care for people who couldn't afford it. Fourteen years later, 64-year-old cancer patient Barbara Wagner was informed that Oregon would not pay for her chemotherapy. A letter from LIPA, the state's representative in her area, did give her some options: palliative care or doctor-assisted suicide.
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Wagner said in an interview with the Eugene Register-Guard, "To say to someone, we'll pay for you to die, but not pay for you to live, it's cruel. Who do they think they are?"
In an interview with the same paper, LIPA's senior medical director Dr. John Sattenspiel said, "We had no intent to upset her, but we do need to point out the options available to her under the Oregon Health Plan."
The Oregon Division of Medical Assistance Programs spokesman, Dr. Walter Shaffer, explained "We can't cover everything for everyone."
Wagner's situation is not unusual where "progressive" governments control health care. People over a certain age are denied, or put on long waiting lists for treatment of serious medical issues. Cold-hearted economics are applied. They aren't expected to live long enough to pay back in taxes the cost of their medical care.
At least you can sue insurance companies if they fail to live up to their contracts. As for the company that makes Wagner's medicine, they are giving it to her for free for the next year.
DAVID SAINT-AMAND
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