Even the Wall Street Journal is noticing the health care crisis [View All]

Since I refuse to sign up for paid access to any website, or even take a trial subscription that lets them get my information, I'm not going to be able to provide a link, but the front page of today's Wall Street Journal (which I happened to see in a coffee shop) carried the story of a woman who suffered from lupus (an auto-immune disease that can damage joints and internal organs) and died because she "fell between the cracks" in private and government medical insurance and didn't get follow-up exams and drug treatments that would have prevented her from reaching the critical stage.

Basically, she was unable to work because of her illness, had been kicked off Tennessee's health care program during their budget cutting frenzy, had been denied federal disability status, was ineligible for private insurance (because she really needed it), and put off going to the doctor, her condition deteriorating all the time, even though her parents offered to mortgage their house to pay for her treatment. Finally, they insisted that she go to the emergency room, only her internal organs were so damaged by this time that she died after several months.

It's a tragic story, especially since the doctors believe that she could have been saved (she was only 32) if she had been monitored regularly and problems had been caught early.

Ironically, she was approved for SSI disability, which would have made her eligible for Medicaid, after she was already dead.

Okay, after I read the story, I looked at the Letters to the Editor section, and it was full of epistles from pure greedheads whining about "income redistribution" and "penalizing success." I tried to imagine what such people would write in response to that story:

"Did she expect to live forever?"
"That hospital lost money on her, and she isn't even a taxpayer."
"She should have taken her parents up on their offer to mortgage their house."
"She shouldn't have quit her job."
"If she lived in Canada or Europe, she'd still be waiting to see a doctor."

I'm going to watch for the next few days and see what the greedheads have to say about this story. :grr:
"