Jan Brewer's Death Panel

I only heard about this story an hour ago, and quite honestly it is the most abhorrent piece of news I've heard in a long time.

According to ABC News and CNN, two people have died as a result of state Medicaid budget cuts, specifically those allocated to transplants. ABC says that,

"They [Brewer's administration and the GOP-controlled legislature] eliminated heart transplants for non-ischemic cardiomyopathy, lung transplants, pancreatic transplants, some bone marrow transplants, and liver transplants for patients infected with hepatitis C. Arizona also restricted coverage of prosthetics, eliminated podiatric services, preventive dental services, and wellness and physical exams for adult Medicaid enrollees1."

The article also mentions a man named Mark Price, 37 years of age, who died waiting for a bone marrow transplant that an anonymous person offered to pay for.

It turns out--and I would imagine that it is obvious to everyone--that Jan Brewer and the GOP legislature are doing exactly what Sarah Palin had warned Obama's health care would do. But they are doing it backwards: They are cutting the programs most necessary to keep people alive: Heart transplants, lung transplants, pancreatic transplants and liver transplants. The human body has only one heart, one pancreas, and one liver, all of which it needs to function properly. Bone marrow is responsible for the creation of white blood cells, which fight infection. I would conclude that the programs cut are the most necessary, and Brewer's government would be hard-pressed to do any worse.

But while the complete disregard for human life is abhorrent enough, the blatant hypocrisy only serves as icing on the cake: Sarah Palin's comment about Death Panels spread like wildfire throughout the ranks of the Tea Party and the GOP at large, and people probably still think that Healthcare Reform is inherently evil (hell, they still believe that Obama was not born in the United States--because Hawaii is not a state--and they still think he's a Muslim. Why, they still think people rode dinosaurs to church!), but that what they hate Obama for doing is entirely permissible in their own camp. Obama can't kill grandma, but we sure can!

There are several options here. Was Alan Grayson right when he eloquently described the Republican Health Care Plan ("If you do get sick, die quickly!")? Does it make more sense to deny people healthcare that will save their lives than to pay for them to lie around waiting to die? Doesn't the public foot that bill if they are uninsured anyway?

I see a pattern here, a very sick and very twisted pattern. I am looking at this in the same way as I look at the fight we had over the Zadroga Act.

There are things that government needs to do, and one of those things is to help provide for people who cannot provide for themselves, especially when the matter is of such paramount importance as life and death.

To be at least partially fair to Ms Brewer and her colleagues, it is true that healthcare spending is exorbitantly high and that it contributes greatly to the national deficit. But there are very important things that the GOP at large fails to consider: Namely, the social impact of their cuts.

Would it have been possible, for example, to try to cut less-necessary procedures or exams before considering cutting things like organ transplants, which are normally considered last-resort procedures? Cutting preventive care, however, strikes me as odd: While preventive care may at first seem extraneous, or an area where charlatans reside, the long-term cost of healthcare may be decreased because of the reduced occurrence of larger and more expensive problems. Allowing people to afford to go to the doctor more often may result in people getting better and more effective treatment earlier, and greatly reducing the cost burden on society. Refusing to pay for preventative care will result in a population that is sick more often and less productive.

Granted, it is possible for people to see the doctor too often, but if someone is complaining of abdominal pain or feels short of breath for a week without an apparent cause, they should go to the doctor.

It seems that they are cutting whatever is convenient, whatever conflicts with their ideology without regard to consequence. The GOP at large has expressed a desire to repeal healthcare reform, even though the Congressional Budget Office stated that the action would add upwards of $200 billion to the deficit2. The GOP is also unwilling to touch the Bush tax cuts, even though they contributed heavily to our problem, and most commentators I've heard state that it would be impossible to fix the deficit without raising taxes, a belief I also happen to share.

Here's what I would want to know: Who, exactly, is making these policy recommendations in Arizona? I could only imagine that the Medicaid insurance structure operates much like any corporate entity: Immediate cost first, quality of life--or life at all--second. In other words, are there any doctors on these Death Panels, or are they all just goons?

If we are going to have a serious discussion about saving money on healthcare, we need to assess the pragmatic and long-term value of preventative care. What can we do to mitigate the long-term cost burden on the state and prevent as best we can the need for such expensive procedures without deciding who lives and who dies? No system is going to be perfect, but budget cuts to programs people actually need with a complete lack of foresight will only kill people. There has to be a way to do this without a cost of human life.

1) http://abcnews.go.com/Health/News/arizona-transplant-deaths/story?id=12559369&page=1

2) http://articles.cnn.com/2011-01-06/politics/health.care_1_health-care-repeal-overhaul?_s=PM:POLITICS