On the Death of Nataline Sarkisyan

My condolences on the Death of 17 year old 19 year old Nataline Sarkisyan.

She died of liver failure resulting from complications of her bone marrow transplant for leukemia, after having a transplant denied (the decision was reversed yesterday) by CIGNA.

That being said, I do not see this indicative of the failure of the health insurance.

Let's be clear, I do see private health insurance in the US as the primary cause of escalating health care costs, and a reduction in the availability of reasonable health care of a more basic nature.

Unfortunately, the pre and neonatal deaths from lack of prenatal care, and the injuries from things like lack of immunizations do not have faces, but they kill more, and cost us more than this one case.

In any realistic competent healthcare system, she should not have gotten a liver transplant. It was simply too expensive, and the potential to save her life, given that she had leukemia, and her immune system had been largely destroyed by the bone marrow transplant procedure.

Her case actually strikes relatively close to home to me.

From 1982 through 1987, I was actively treated for chronic non-A Non-B hepatitis^*, first with steroids, and then with immune suppressants^†.

Based on this, I believe that my chance of experiencing liver failure over the course of my life is significantly more than that of the general population.

I do not believe that many of these high tech interventions, and I would include liver transplantation, are an efficient or effective way to spend a limited healthcare dollar.

^*I have been regularly tested since, but my numbers have been fine, and so, apart from not giving blood and having annual liver function tests, I am now unaffected by this. I'm allowed to drink.
^†Basically, it was treated as an immune system/connective tissue problem, my ANA was at one point 4,000,000:1 (IIRC). It appears that my body was attacking my liver. Except for weight loss, I was asymptomatic, though the steriods (40mg prednisone) was no fun while I was on it.