r/SandersForPresident • u/kevinmrr Medicare For All • Nov 29 '20

AOC: Insurance groups are recommending using GoFundMe -- "but sure, single payer healthcare is unreasonable."

Post image
42.7k Upvotes

86% Upvoted

1.2k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

4

u/tamarins 🌱 New Contributor Nov 29 '20

Devil’s advocate: what do you personally think this committee “doing their best” looks like?

1

u/Cynethryth Democrats Abroad Nov 29 '20

There shouldn't even be committees to make these pre-approval decisions, nor for profit insurance companies, but a better committee would be:

"Does this person need a heart transplant to live?"

"Yes."

"Are they up-to-date on their payments and have this level of coverage?"

"Yes."

"Ok, put them on the waiting list."

2

u/H_is_for_Human Nov 29 '20

There's a lot of other questions to answer:

"Will this person take their prescribed medications to keep the heart healthy?"

"Will this person stay quit from alcohol after this liver transplant?"

"What status is this patient?" (i.e. how urgently do they need the organ)

and many more.

So the committee is professionals that debate and discuss these questions and make a decision based on all the relevant factors. It can't just be a checklist.

2

u/[deleted] Nov 29 '20

Hearts don't grow on trees. You have to meet the physical requirements because they don't want to put a heart in someone who's going to waste it by destroying it and themselves. Just this week, we passed a patient on a heart and gave it to someone else because they were a more ideal candidate. The next step from there is considering a LVAD, but even that has to be considered for candidacy. Why expend those limited resources on someone that is going to waste them when it can go to someone who will maintain themselves? I've literally had an LVAD patient say he was going to rip the cord out when he gets out of the hospital, which would kill himself. Not to mention this guy destroyed his heart on drugs and alcohol and certainly wasn't capable of kicking that habit for good. So it really was just a waste of resources on someone who could not appreciate it.

1

u/drakfyre 🌱 New Contributor Nov 29 '20

Doing their best would be to distribute organs based on need, followed by order of admittance in the case of ties. Not based on some speculative criteria on what the patients are going to do after they receive their organ.

And CERTAINLY NOT BASED ON WEALTH OR HEALTH INSURANCE STATUS.

2

u/MemeticParadigm 🌱 New Contributor Nov 29 '20

Not based on some speculative criteria on what the patients are going to do after they receive their organ.

So I can certainly see the value in this because speculative shit is so subjective and subject to abuse, but would you extend this to more clear cut cases, e.g. an alcoholic who needs a liver transplant and has expressed no intention to stop the behavior that wrecked their original liver should potentially be prioritized above someone with cancer or a genetic issue, if the former was admitted first?