What I still don’t get is how this is supposed to be an example of an “uncaring” government. As far as I can tell we have:
Part 1: Social Security goes out of their way to make sure a mother with cancer gets the money she is entitled to for her child. We’ve established that she wasn’t tricked. So it sounds like a pretty great example of the government doing a good thing. Does Social Security have any way of knowing what her relation is with Medicaid? I don’t believe so. All they know is that there is a program she is eligible for, and they let her know.
Part 2: Medicaid drops her coverage. We were all meant to believe that she was dropped because the procedure was too expensive. That a government bureaucrat wanted to save money. But the reality is that she was dropped because she no longer qualified, her income was now above the cutoff. To me that’s completely neutral. It sucks, but it’s not a matter of being caring or uncaring. She no longer qualifies, and as Starving Artist said, it doesn’t make sense to cover everyone. If you move out of state, your drivers license is no longer valid. If your license is no longer valid, neither is your insurance. Is that uncaring?
We also have no idea what her actual financial situation is. I don’t know what the Medicaid cut off is in Florida, let’s say it’s $15k. I find it hard to believe that the benefits for her child were $15k a year, so she’s got at least $13 or $14k coming in from some where (child support payments perhaps).
What we have is simply bad timing. The person at the Medicaid office who deals with that part of the paperwork doesn’t know she has surgery planned. And given how slow government works, chances are all this was set into motion months before the procedure was even an option.
And even if this uncaring and evil bureaucrat knew about the procedure, Medicaid doesn’t have the option to cover people just because they need a life saving procedure. It’s not based on health care needs, it’s based on financial needs. Do you see how fucked up that is? People qualify for Medicaid if their income is below a set limit, there is no qualification based on health care needs. Needing a bone marrow transplant isn’t on the Medicaid application form. So this woman wasn’t unfairly targeted, she was simply no longer eligible.
Part 3: The hospital refused to allow the procedure because of liability. Now THAT sounds uncaring to me, but the hospital isn’t the government, it’s private.
The only thing we’ve proven is that private hospitals are uncaring and driven by profit. That profit motives means that a cost benefit analysis HAS to be performed on each individual case. And that when the risk to profits is too great beautiful young mothers have to die.
That a beautiful young mother wouldn’t be able to get a lifesaving procedure if it wasn’t for the government stepping in to help.
That’s what this article proves. For profit health care does not work. Well, I guess it works for 85% of the population, the rest die unless the government steps in to do something.
If he’s started flashing his bankroll during the past six months, please disregard my post.