A timely topic appeared as a docu-drama last night on Law and Order and was viewed by millions.
As desperate parents sought treatment for their only child who was diagnosed with leukemia, we watched the process of rejection that the insurance companies sometimes make for healthcare coverage.
Rather than approve a drug recently out on the market that did not have long term studies and would cost millions of dollars, the insurance company approved a bone marrow transplant. We then learn that since the little girl is Hispanic, chances of her finding a suitable donor for the transplant were remote.
The reasons given by the decision makers in the insurance company were supposedly because the bone marrow transplant was a proven treatment and would be cost effective. Further, that approving the untested drug might bankrupt the insurance company and that the company had an obligation to the rest of the insured community to ensure that it would be around and solvent to insure others in their time of need.
Because the decision maker stood in the way of a possible cure for the child in the eyes of the father, Mr. Insurance Man was murdered. At the trial, the defense was the taking of a life was justified to save another.
The problem with this logic is obvious. No one is safe if making decisions puts us in jeopardy of being murdered or harmed. Everyone makes someone angry at some point, even when the decisions are educated and justified in our minds.
What makes this drama especially disturbing is that the father was not found guilty. It seems that the sentiments against health insurance companies are popular ones and that the insurance companies are comprised of very sinister people, plotting against the public for their own financial gain.
In other words, in order to force humanity onto the insurance companies, we are becoming less human. This cannot be acceptable and yet for many it is.
What are your thoughts?
