Well, this is the REAL death panels that have already began with a prototype in Arizona thanks to the grim reaper rethugliteacons:
From: Forbes.com
BrewerCare- Death By Budget Cut
Dec. 15 2010 - 2:50 pm
By RICK UNGAR
Due to severe state budget difficulties, the State of Arizona recently ended a government program that funded organ transplants for those in life-threatening circumstances.
For Arizonans in need, the move truly represents a death sentence. Not the Sarah Palin snappy one-liner kind where politicians throw around phrases like “death panels”, “killing grandma” or some of Gov. Palin’s other greatest hits – but a real, honest to goodness, no kidding around, death sentence.
Literally overnight, terminal patients who previously had a real chance to stay alive went from hope to despair, consigned to resort to television pitches on news interview programs in an effort to inspire strangers to send in money to fund their life-saving surgeries.
Stung by the reaction of the public, and their own moral outrage at GOP Gov. Jan Brewer and her allies for engaging in so harsh a budget solution, Democratic members of the Arizona legislature appealed to the governor to call a special session of the legislature to reinstate the medical transplant program.
So far, Brewer has refused to call such a session.
The matter raises, in stark reality, one of the most difficult questions government can face – should government allow people to die as a result of a budget crisis?
Some will react to this question by blaming the victims for not having purchased health insurance when they had the opportunity. No doubt, there are cases that fall into this category.
But not all of them. Take, for example, Randy Shepherd, a 36-year-old father of three who has reached the end of his ability to survive on a pacemaker. Shepherd’s only chance at life is a heart transplant – something he cannot pay for because he does not have an insurance policy that would pay for the procedure.
But Shepherd does not find himself in this situation by choice or because of poor or negligent financial planning. The heart problem that threatens to bring his life to an end is the result of the rheumatic fever he contracted as a child.
Unable to purchase private coverage due to his serious pre-existing condition (a problem that will no longer exist thanks to health care reform), Shepherd had no other option but to go on Medicaid.
Now, Arizona’s Medicaid program will no longer pay the costs of the transplant.
Randy Shepherd was already on the list to get a heart when Brewer cut the funding to the program, cuts that totaled $1.4 million, pulling the rug out from under him. Accordingly to the governor, this had to be done because the state “can only provide so many optional kinds of care.”
Brewer might have a point were it not for the fact that, according to the Tucson Sentinel, her state had agreed to spend $1.7 million of federally provided stimulus funds to renovate the roof of the Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum- money that could have continued funding the transplant program. Maybe her position would be more defensible had Arizona not budgeted $2 million for algae research instead of spending that money on the life-saving medical procedures.
While I appreciate that many of our States are in dire financial circumstances, I wonder if there is any way to justify prioritizing algae research while allowing people to actually die?
The ending of the transplant program is not the only action the Governor has taken to reduce needed health services in her state. Her 2011 state budget also eliminates the state’s “KidsCare” program that provides health insurance to uninsured children whose families’ income exceeds the Medicaid cutoff. The cost of this program is $18 million.
Seeing what is happening in Arizona reminds me of a conversation I once had with a distinguished gentleman from Egypt. As a representative of his government in our nation’s capital, he had the opportunity to form an opinion of western culture from an ‘up close and personal’ perspective
I recall him telling me that there was much about our culture that he disliked. However, the one thing that he admired – and very much wished his own people would mirror – was the high value we place on human life. In his own culture, an individual life is not treated with the same reverence and respect.
He was right, of course. Placing the highest possible value on human life has always been at the very core of our culture.
So, when the Governor of the State of Arizona is prepared to allow people to die who might otherwise be saved because it is going to be difficult to find $1.4 million in an $8.5 billion budget, don’t we have to ask whether this constitutes a direct assault on the value of a life in America?
Budgetary problems are real and serious. I live in California. I get it.
But nothing is as real or serious as ignoring our responsibility to use everything we’ve got to help save a life. Governor Brewer’s decisions, in this instance, go well beyond an effort to dig her state out of a financial hole. They represent a true and real assault on our most basic cultural values, leaving me to ask …..
Where is Sarah Palin when we need her?
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