TRANSPLANT DENIAL

Unfortunate decision

Whoa! A woman takes a couple of tokes after she is told she is dying
from hepatitis - and the only thing that will save her life is a
liver transplant and that indiscretion makes her ineligible for her
HMSA insurance to cover that transplant?

I will deliberately refrain from expressing my personal views
regarding marijuana. What I will address is that cannabis is part of
many island residents' culture. These are not the hard core users who
go on to other even more detrimental drugs and become outcasts of our
society. Rather these are regular folks who happen to use marijuana
much as others use alcohol, a weekend here and a weekend there.

Let's be honest, you are told you are dying, what are you going to
reach for? You are going to reach for something that has provided you
with comfort in the past (unless that substance has proved harmful to
you and you have, with hard work, withdrawn from it). So many will
probably reach for tobacco, alcohol, food, exercise or, heaven
forbid, marijuana. I am not talking about rational thinking, rather
am addressing that panic response to impending death that is very human.

Now we find out that HMSA tested this subscriber for marijuana after
they had approved her for a liver transplant. In fairness to HMSA it
did test her for a total of three times, each trace-positive (not
much) for the substance in question.

My concern, did it use its little-known rule of strictly forbidding
drug use to avoid a high-cost procedure? A serious question indeed.
Does HMSA test for drug use before less expensive procedures such as
surgery for colon cancer, a coronary artery bypass and other life
saving surgeries? Then do they use those results for justification of
approval or denial? I don't think so.

In a recent letter to President Obama regarding health care reform, I
strongly suggested that before making major changes in our health
care system that he address to resolution the obscenely high profits
of insurance companies, the rationing of health care by them to save
money, and their lack of social conscience in addressing the
inequitable distribution of access to health care that they control.
This example appears to be just was I was talking about.

The death of this woman, with the information presented in your
article, is an example of irresponsible manipulation of contracts. It
was a "gotcha" that lead to a probably preventable early death.
Currently it seems that it has become OK to behave inexcusably, all
in the name of "good business." Along with that there is a segment of
our society that screams "I deserve more than others, therefore you
owe me" - both are greedy postures that do not serve us well. This
woman did not do that, she simply wanted what she deserved, did not
get it, and she died.

As our economy suffers we are seeing more and more bullying and heavy
handedness in many different venues. In the name of decency, it must stop.

Gail Loofbourrow

Kailua-Kona