And so it begins.
Presently, kidney transplants are on a more-or-less
first-come-first-serve basis. Those waiting the longest receive kidneys the
quickest, as they come available.
The United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS), a nonprofit
organization that distributes organs, is now suggesting that a kidney with a
potential life expectancy of 40 years shouldn't be given to someone with 5
years left to live (actuarially speaking—or, more accurately, guessing). In
other words, young healthy kidneys should go to younger, otherwise healthy
recipients--no matter how long they've been waiting.
UNOS is proposing that "20% of kidneys expected to last
the longest would go to the 20% of recipients expected to get the most years
out of each organ."
Bioethicists and others are justifiably concerned about this
because, first and foremost, WHO decides WHO the lucky recipients will be?--not
to mention, there are basic concerns about fairness and equitability.
In recent Facebook posts, I examined fallacies of Obamacare that have
circulated the Internet—fallacies designed to do nothing but frighten people. I
found many things about the Affordable Health Care Act that are good and
necessary, and I admit I enjoyed digging into the legislation to find the facts
that would put an end to fear-mongering lies. However, I also found many areas
of concern in the legislation, and I also pointed out those.
One of the issues I discussed was rationing. What UNOS is
proposing is the beginning of global-budget-centered rationing that will affect
ALL Americans.
According to the UNOS website, more than 28,000 people
receive organ transplants each year. Also according to their website, they
receive most of their funding through “computer registration fees paid by
members, charitable contributions, and project grants from foundations and
corporations.” Only 7% of their funding comes from federal contracts, according
to their site.
However, UNOS was awarded the national Organ Procurement and
Transplantation Network (OPTN) contract in 1986 by the US Department of Health
and Human Services. UNOS is still the only organization to operate under the
OPTN.
Together, OPTN and UNOS have almost a dozen JOINT committees
and have already established 11 “geographical regions” for “administrative
purposes.” This is ripe territory for establishing global budgets, which is the
cornerstone to rationing healthcare.
In case you didn’t read my posts about global budgets, they
are regionally established budgets that assign a specific dollar amount to
regions for the purpose of healthcare services/expense distribution. In other
words, Region 1 will have X number of dollars to spend on healthcare and all of
the people in Region 1 have to stay within that budget. This means that certain
decisions will have to be made about who receives care—and how much—in order to
stay within budget. A lot of people with high-cost medical expenses will
inevitably be denied care. Quality will have to be sacrificed in order to serve
the entire population of that region. That’s how global budgets work. That’s
how socialized medicine works in other countries. That's how socialized
medicine will work here in the United States. Denying care is the ONLY way
budgets are achieved. It's simple math to bureaucrats.
There are many, many factors that go into the current system
of deciding who receives transplants. But giving transplants to those in need
on a first-come-first-serve basis is currently the fairest, most ethical means
of distribution.
This subject hits close to home for me. My husband’s cousin,
Philip, is facing this terrible situation right now. His wife, Brittney, is a
beautiful, young mother of two small children. Her kidneys have been failing
for quite some time. No suitable match was available for years, and her health
deteriorated to the point of desperation. Finally, a decision was made for
Phillip to donate one of his kidneys. It wasn’t a perfect match, but it was
worth the risk to try. They both underwent the difficult and painful procedure
a couple of weeks ago, and so far they are both doing well. We continue to pray
for miraculous recoveries.
Under UNOS’s proposed system, however, even though Brittney
has been waiting for several years, her health deteriorated to the point that
her life expectancy wasn’t pleasant to consider and she wouldn't be a
frontrunner candidate for a kidney transplant. Under UNOS’s proposed system,
Brittney would be denied a kidney when it becomes available because a young
healthy kidney might be wasted on her. Under UNOS’s system, her own husband may
not be able to donate his kidney to her. Instead, his kidney could go to
someone younger, healthier, who hasn’t been waiting as long. Would Phillip
still want to donate an organ if he knows it wouldn't go to his wife? How many
other potential donors will not give if they think their organs will be part of
the cherry-picking process?
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that UNOS has made this
call right now—this close to an election, and this soon after the Affordable
Care Act was passed and found constitutionally viable. What kind of pressure is
UNOS receiving from OPTN to make this change? Will they lose funding and their
OPTN award if they do not comply? Are they offering this olive branch in return
for their continued control over their own organization?
These are questions we need to ask NOW. We can sit in our
easy chairs and watch the evening news and feel confident that the people we
put in office are keeping an eye on this situation, BUT THE PEOPLE WHO SIGNED
OBAMACARE INTO LAW STILL DO NOT KNOW WHAT IS IN IT—BY THEIR OWN ADMISSION.
We can’t wait for “someone else” to protect us. It’s a grave
mistake to assume anyone in Washington is looking out for our best interests.
And it doesn’t matter who our next president will be—the results will be the
same if we do not demand answers and hold policymakers accountable.
If this is a subject near and dear to you, go to this site: http://www.organdonor.gov/legislation_micro/
and review federal and state legislation regarding organ and tissue donation.
Write to your representatives and demand answers about how they plan to protect
you and your community from healthcare rationing and global budgets.
It is clear that our Washington representatives have no
interest in policing themselves on issues that don’t directly affect them. They
don’t receive the same healthcare packages we do, and they never will under
their current entitlements. Unless we FORCE change to take place, it will not
happen.
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