Louisiana Republican Warns Of Organ Rationing That Already Occurs

Just a little while ago, GOP Rep. Steve Scalise from Louisiana was riven with concern over the terrifying prospect of government intervention in health care. He came armed with a sob story that really just goes to show the lengths to which people will go to obfuscate the underlying issues.

SCALISE: When you look at the bill, you start to realize what they're doing and proposing is the very government takeover where rationing of care would exist where a government bureaucrat can get in between the relationship of you and your doctor. It's the same thing that's happened in Canada, the same thing that's happened in England, where unfortunately just yesterday, we saw the story of a 22-year-old, who was denied life-saving care, denied a transplant by this government bureaucracy that exists in England that rations care.

Okay, in the first place, there is always an implicit rationing of care where organ transplantation is concerned, in every health care system, in every country that does organ transplants. Why is this? Well, to the best of my knowledge, WE CANNOT GROW ORGANS ON FARMS. Maybe someday, life will be like a Doctor Who episode, but for the moment, we have a finite supply, relative to demand. And that means that organs get rationed. What's more, there already is a substantial bureaucracy that makes the determination as to who gets what organ here, in America, with our "best health care in the world."

But! I'm curious about this terrible tragedy that unfolded in the socialist sweatcamp known as Great Britain, where this heroic 22-year-old was denied "life-saving care" by latter-day Marxist healthcare providers. I bet you are too! Well, I found the story of this young man, and all I can say is: PREPARE YOURSELF TO OVERDOSE ON THE PATHOS.

A 22-year-old British man who became an alcoholic as a teenager has died after doctors refused to give him a liver transplant.

Gary Reinbach began binge drinking when he was just 13 and ended up with severe cirrhosis of the liver.

He was admitted to a London hospital in May but died after doctors refused to give him a liver transplant amid fears he would not stay sober for six months after the operation.

Reinbach's mother insists that "he did everything he could to cooperate with the doctors," but those same doctors had to contend with the fact that "Mr Reinbach was one of the youngest people in Britain to die of advanced cirrhosis brought on by binge drinking."

Anyway, tragic story of medical ethics, true. Nevertheless, one has to wonder whether, if these doctors had opted to throw away a perfectly good liver on someone they had no confidence in taking care of it, the next person in line for a liver transplant might have something to say about the way this finite resource was rationed.

According to the American Liver Foundation, there are currently 17,000 Americans on the transplant waiting list. As far as how they are currently rationed, the ALF says:

The time that people spend waiting for a liver transplant varies widely. Blood type, body size, severity of illness and availability of donor organs all affect waiting time. Some people who develop sudden and complete liver failure from an acute illness may only have to wait a few days for a transplant. Other people, whose condition is less severe, may stay on the waiting list for many months.

Of course, your mileage may vary. And maybe, if you are, say ... Steve Jobs, you get to fully experience what everyone means when they say America has the finest health care in the world.

Nevertheless, it's clear that Representative Scalise is a far more empathetic person than I am! I would have figured him for one of those "politics of personal responsibility" types! I'm really looking forward to assessing his sure-to-be forthcoming "Unlimited Livers For Drunks Freedom America Awesome Act of 2009" on the merits.

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Comments

[Hydro]

12:14 PM on 07/22/2009

Shame...what with all those livers lying around London.
In Canada, livers run wild and free. You can catch them in streams and rivers north of Toronto.

[redkittyred]

03:24 AM on 07/22/2009

If a public option does not pass, my first order would be to remove the government health care from all these people and make them buy their own private option.

[Figural]

01:28 AM on 07/22/2009

The patient in this case got great care, free, including an artificial liver imported from California. He had to not drink alcohol for six months BEFORE he was put on the transplant list, that's the rule here; he would have been told that when the need for a transplant first arose. I have to agree with the comments about not wasting an organ here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/lizhunt/5881334/A-face-that-should-haunt-a-generation.html. We have support programmes paid for by the taxpayer; and AA, intervention and 12-step programmes like everyone else. Sorry, although he started drinking as a child (what parenting?), he did it to himself.

[Dbos]

12:51 AM on 07/22/2009

Cstreet organs gone wild

[ariveria]

11:46 PM on 07/21/2009

we have health care rationing in the good ole us of a today.

it is based on money

[Derelict outlaw]

11:44 PM on 07/21/2009

If we really run into an organ rationing crisis we can put motorcycles (donor cycles) on the Pharma formulary of the citizens that object to the reform. We'll give them a big discount.

[Layman23]

10:44 PM on 07/21/2009

Then we should play Michael Moore's video on how americans got almost free healthcare in CUBA !!!

[Michaela1976]

10:42 PM on 07/21/2009

How many people here think health care will pass with a public option? I hope it does pass but at this point I really don't think it will :-(

The Blue Dogs will destroy it. I think Obama should have gotten involved more directly earlier but still all the woulda coulda shoulda won't make a bit of difference in the end.

I just hope the people in this country destroy those senators come election time and send a loud loud message.

[Derelict outlaw]

11:41 PM on 07/21/2009

Don't give up!! Keep writing, keep calling, seize the day!!

[Michaela1976]

10:37 PM on 07/21/2009

For people afraid of losing their insurance you won't. You'll just pay less for it with REAL competition. And your problem with that is ?

Think of health care like your ISP. How many of you have alternate cable companies in your area? (Yes you have other ways of getting TV but I mean alternate cable companies)

They can set their prices at anything they like because they have no competition. And they can have horrible service and you are stuck. .. Health care in many places is like the cable industry.. the only game in town and they know it and take full advantage of it .

[rubygreen]

09:43 PM on 07/21/2009

I was wondering who, and how long it would be, before a republican would jump on this story.

[AleshiaMassey]

12:31 AM on 07/22/2009

I wonder why they are not using the story of George Best? He was a drinker,given a liver, and then continued to drink and died after transplant- public drunkenness on TV, convictions for drunk driving and assaulting a policeman, and his inability to give up drinking even after the transplant...

[kustom]

09:34 PM on 07/21/2009

How many organs have been transplanted in this country that were HIV or Hepatitis C infected?

[Derelict outlaw]

11:42 PM on 07/21/2009

Very very few.....

[lbrty 2112]

09:21 PM on 07/21/2009

Oh, I see...... under this type of system, access to health care is dependent on how socially acceptable our affliction is. Really, does it matter this guy was an alcoholic? Does that make him any less worthy? I'm sure he's paid his share in taxes to fund the scheme. The story here is that under socialized medicine, care is rationed..

care is rationed..

care is rationed.

care is rationed

[tangelan]

09:58 PM on 07/21/2009

The same thing happens here NOW. What is wrong with you people?

Care is rationed now.

Care is rationed now.

CARE IS RATIONED NOW!!!

[GoDogGo]

10:31 PM on 07/21/2009

Did you not read the story? Livers are rationed HERE...NOW.

It doesn't matter if the kid's parents paid taxes for their care or an insurance company's premiums -- Doctors have to evaluate an addict's ability to take care of such a preciously scarce and life-giving resource, a human liver. If he was such a bad alcoholic that his liver failed at only 22, then his ability to stay sober has to be a factor in any medical decision.

Sadly, doctors here would have to make the same decision and the young man would have died. It's not one system vs. another, it's just medical reality.

[garymc8]

07:51 PM on 07/21/2009

He is right about organ rationing because many of the gop have shared A brain for the last 20 years.

[rubygreen]

09:45 PM on 07/21/2009

LOL!

[Michaela1976]

10:27 PM on 07/21/2009

They just share "air" space :-)

[Birdman]

07:42 PM on 07/21/2009

psssssssst do not look now but they ration organs already.. If you do not know this already you seriously need a different career, maybe you constituents will help there, but somehow I doubt it. Also if you do know this already then you are lying and well you need to have a different career where you cannot ruin other people lives for your own gain.

[lbrty 2112]

09:27 PM on 07/21/2009

They're only rationed 'implicitly" because the sources of the organs, in all cases, are still alive and using them presently.. That really leads to a supply issue don't you think?

[tangelan]

10:00 PM on 07/21/2009

So organs are in plentiful supply in England?

[tel8034]

07:30 PM on 07/21/2009

Steve Scalise failed to disclose that if this had happened to our most famous alcoholic [George W. Bush], he would have had all of the oil money, and Iraq war profiteering money to BUY a favor and get his name on the top of a transplant list, and enough money to pay for the operation and the after care............... Most patients in need of a transplant don't have the money, nor the insurance coverage, neither are there enough organs available for every patient in need.

There is ALWAYS a waiting list for patients waiting for transplants in the US and abroad, and unfortunately many die waiting for a transplant, even with the republican backed scamming, and greedy insurance companies currently in place..............

The current US healthcare system does NOT guarantee that 100% of patients needing a transplant will get one, and neither can a reformed health care system make that guarantee................... SO SCALISE'S ARGUMENT IS DISINGENUOUS.

Doctors make decisions ALL the time when it comes to which patient gets the required organ, based on a myriad of factors..................

The call the doctors made in England may not have been easy, but if it was a choice between a relative of Scalise who was not an alcoholic and the boy who was STILL drinking, and if the boy was chosen for the transplant over the relative knowing these facts, Scalise would have been shouting foul from every roof top.

[larry278]

09:08 PM on 07/21/2009

If W does need a liver transplant, the war in Iraq has left Iraq's poor much poorer & a lot more Iraqi's are miserably poor. Some of Iraq's poor are driven to ilicit sale of their organs. That means the there are more organs for the black markets in livers, kidneys, maybe eyes. Poppy & Jeb could scrape up the money to buy W a liver & have the transplant done secretly outside the USA in hospitals who cater to rich foreigners. I think that would be called an irony.