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Just today I read on my facebook page, a connection someone put on there for this baby in Portland, Oregon who needs a heart transplant and Children's Hospital in Seattle would not care for him without 1.5 million dollars up front. (see KATU.com). The family has health insurance but it does not cover transplants. The baby was born at 36 weeks. As of today, it looks like the baby was transferred to Children's in Pittsburgh.
This is the clip from the article on Seattle Children's reason for not taking this child:
The hospital released the following statement about Laith's case on Tuesday:
"It pains us to be in a position where we cannot provide health care services to all children who need them. We receive requests for financial support from families throughout the world and unfortunately do not have funds to care for every child in need.
We are committed to providing health care to children in the WAMI region (Washington, Alaska, Montana and Idaho) regardless of a family’s ability to pay. Unfortunately we do not have the funding to make the same commitment to children outside our four-state area. Patients who live outside our region are encouraged to work with their insurance company and members of their communities to raise the money needed to be seen at Children’s.
Children’s provided more than $86 million in un- and under-compensated care in FY 07/08 and that number is expected to grow to more than $100 million in FY 2009."
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I'm surprised someone from Children's actually let that statement be released because it comes across as incredibly cold. No we can't save the world but when you stop just because of money... if the baby had been born just over the other side of the Columbia in Vancouver, they would have done it for free... doesn't it just come right down to money for a life?
“Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, or worn. It is the
spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace & gratitude.”
– Denis W...
2 comments:
TroutMacs Comment:
I think, actually, that there's something more sinister even than money at work here… don't get me wrong, money IS an issue, but ask yourself this question:
WHY is money the issue? What world view would produce the attitude that, in cases like these, money is no object and what world view would produce the attitude that there must be a limit on how much money is spent in cases like these?
If you believed, for example, that people are really just complex conglomerations of matter and molecules and the soul is just an "emergent" property of someone's brain, and that life was merely an accident and there is nothing beyond the natural realm and no ultimate foundation for morality and ethics, if you believed that people are really just machines and their lives really don't have any transcendent meaning and that man is not really created in God's image, then wouldn't it make sense to you to place a limit on how much money should be spent in cases like these? I mean if you REALLY BELIEVED that? (and this is precisely what is being taught in our universities and high schools)
On the other hand, if you believe that every human was created in the image of God, that God exists (of course) and that a "person" is actually greater than the sum of his or her physical parts (molecules, etc.) and that a human soul is immaterial and supernatural and that there IS an ultimate foundation for morality and ethics, and you believed that each person has a specific purpose here on Earth and because of all this every person's life has VALUE, then would you likewise be inclined to place a limit on how much money gets spent? I don't think so.
My point is that the real battle in science is not so much evolution vs. Intelligent Design or creationism or whatever. The real battle is between materialism/naturalism (the belief that nature is all there ever is, all there ever has been, and all there ever will be… there is no immaterial or supernatural realm) and, well, it's opposite. And our universities and medical institutions are dominated by people who are staunch naturalists. It's their naturalist philosophy that requires them to be Darwinists… not the biological evidence. Naturalism is the root, and I submit that it is operating behind-the-scenes in this situation as well. To some of these folks, this child ultimately has no value. He or she was just an accident like all the rest of us, a product of chance and necessity and not the product of an omnipotent God. Their life has no objective meaning, so what's the big deal?
Ideas have consequences, and BAD ideas have BAD consequences.
And by the way… if you think this is bad, just wait'll health care becomes something provided by government. Forget grandma… she's not worth it, she's just going to die anyway. Get over it.
We are NOT heading in a good direction right now, I'm afraid.
My Fathers comment:
You think the statement is cold? How would you have broken the bad news to the parents in light of financial realities? If one says yes, yes, yes, at some point the answer is no. How would you say no to the child’s parents in Seattle who must face death because “we have been taking care of needs from far and wide and have no money to take care of those closest to us, in our own back yard. Sorry” When the life boat is full, the life boat is full. One more person will swamp the boat and all perish. Unfortunately this is the harsh reality of economics. God calls on us to be wise stewards of his money. Our government doesn’t know when to say no. Just wait until you and you children and grandchildren must pay more and more in payroll taxes. What’s a couple hundred dollars per month in extra taxes anyway? Wait until the medical system is so swamped the health care is rationed like in Canada and England. They literally withhold treatment until people die. If you are too old, they say no. This is happening now. Where do they come? America, to get the treatment to live. These are heavy subjects for which feelings and good intentions do little. Love Pa
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