An Associated Press article: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32209612/ns/health-health_care/
Some hospitals do not inquire very deeply into the source of the organs they transplant because such operations can be highly lucrative...On average, a kidney transplant in the U.S. resulted in $259,000 in medical bills last year, according to the Milliman consulting firm. Hospitals and doctors are reimbursed an average of $80,000 to $100,000 by private insurers, said transplant specialist Dr. Thomas Diflo of New York University.
Despite guidelines from various groups and Medicare, U.S. transplant centers are mostly free to write their own rules for screening donors to make sure they are not selling their organs..
[In case you didn't know, this organ trafficking ring included RABBIS... Nice....]
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Living Organ Donations: Not Always Heart Warming Human Interest Stories
Yep, I just borrowed my blog title from Deborah Shelton's latest article on living donors. Deborah is a fabulous reporter, formerly with the St. Louis Dispatch and now The Chicago Tribune, who teaches other journalists how to see through the press releases and smoke-blowing to get to the 'real' issues. Her 2005 articles in the St. Louis Dispatch about the lack of care given living donors spawned a 2006 CNN program called "CNN Present: Body Parts", soliciting opinions from all sides and revealing some disturbing information about our current transplant system. (There are refences to this program on the LD101 website)
So read Deborah's latest here on ReportingHealth.org
PS You can find Deborah's St. Louis Dispatch articles at librarysearch or most likely, your local library newspaper database (They have these things called computers in most libraries these days, in case you didn't know....)
So read Deborah's latest here on ReportingHealth.org
PS You can find Deborah's St. Louis Dispatch articles at librarysearch or most likely, your local library newspaper database (They have these things called computers in most libraries these days, in case you didn't know....)
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Friday, July 17, 2009
Broken Healthcare - other opinions
From ZDnet, Alex Rivlin, CEO of InsureMonkey lists his five reasons healthcare is broken.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Living Donors Can't Get Health Insurance
This isn't news to me, or to many other living donors, but apparently it is to LA Times' David Lazarus, and he writes about it here.
I sent an email to Mr. Lazarus after reading his column, as follows:
Mr. Lazarus,
First of all, thank you for giving attention to this matter. The inability to procure health or life insurance post-donation is a very real problem that the regulatory agencies and transplant organizations are aware of but do nothing about. While insurance companies may hedge regarding a 'real' answer to the question, the NY Attorney General issued a statement in 2008 allowing private insurer's to exclude living donors, which can be found here: http://www.livingdonor101.com/LDNYinsurancelaws2008.pdf. Common sense would indicate this statement did not arise out of nowhere; this is a question that had been put to the state of NY for some time and required a response.
As for the idea of insurance companies providing a discount to living donors, that approach could very well be in conflict with the prohibition against 'valuable consideration' as indicated in NOTA 1984.
I would caution against perpetrating the myth of living donation carrying minimal risk. While the medical community has been harvesting organs from living people for over fifty years, they've never felt them important enough to track or study comprehensively. UNOS acknowledges they lose track of 40% of donors within six months of surgery, and another 40% within a year. At a recent ACOT meeting, Dr. Matthew Cooper acknowledged that since 2006, when a mandatory 2-year living donor follow-up was implemented, 20% of the records since remain incomplete. What is certain is that living donation related health issues do not arise until years after donation and are therefore not documented in any way. We do know that since 1993 nearly 200 living donors have been added to the waiting list in need of their own transplant, a mean of seventeen years post-donation. It begs the question of how many have been diagnosed with end-stage renal disease or died as a result but were never identified as a living donor or brought to UNOS/OPTN's attention.
Again, I appreciate any attention brought to the neglect and abuse of living donors. Please feel free to browse the information contained my website (including the source material for the statements made above), and contact me if you have any questions or comments.
Cristy Wright, M.Ed.
(& living kidney donor)
I sent an email to Mr. Lazarus after reading his column, as follows:
Mr. Lazarus,
First of all, thank you for giving attention to this matter. The inability to procure health or life insurance post-donation is a very real problem that the regulatory agencies and transplant organizations are aware of but do nothing about. While insurance companies may hedge regarding a 'real' answer to the question, the NY Attorney General issued a statement in 2008 allowing private insurer's to exclude living donors, which can be found here: http://www.livingdonor101.com/LDNYinsurancelaws2008.pdf. Common sense would indicate this statement did not arise out of nowhere; this is a question that had been put to the state of NY for some time and required a response.
As for the idea of insurance companies providing a discount to living donors, that approach could very well be in conflict with the prohibition against 'valuable consideration' as indicated in NOTA 1984.
I would caution against perpetrating the myth of living donation carrying minimal risk. While the medical community has been harvesting organs from living people for over fifty years, they've never felt them important enough to track or study comprehensively. UNOS acknowledges they lose track of 40% of donors within six months of surgery, and another 40% within a year. At a recent ACOT meeting, Dr. Matthew Cooper acknowledged that since 2006, when a mandatory 2-year living donor follow-up was implemented, 20% of the records since remain incomplete. What is certain is that living donation related health issues do not arise until years after donation and are therefore not documented in any way. We do know that since 1993 nearly 200 living donors have been added to the waiting list in need of their own transplant, a mean of seventeen years post-donation. It begs the question of how many have been diagnosed with end-stage renal disease or died as a result but were never identified as a living donor or brought to UNOS/OPTN's attention.
Again, I appreciate any attention brought to the neglect and abuse of living donors. Please feel free to browse the information contained my website (including the source material for the statements made above), and contact me if you have any questions or comments.
Cristy Wright, M.Ed.
(& living kidney donor)
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
OPTN Region 10 Live Summer Meeting
I twittered during the OPTN meeting today. Check it out at: www.twitter.com/livingdonor101.
I'll be writing up longer comments later.
I'll be writing up longer comments later.
Monday, July 13, 2009
Retro Tunes
Lately I have been digging Oingo Boingo so much more than I did back in the day. Damn, that Danny Elfman was ahead of his time.
Wednesday, July 08, 2009
Ohio's economic issues
If you're within earshot of the state of Ohio, it's impossible to ignore the dismal economic situation we're in. We didn't benefit from that ginormous housing boom that affected many cities/states so we haven't been pummeled by that particular recession, but we still have a number of manufacturing jobs (read: American car companies) and we are in possession of some of the highest state school tuitions in the nation.
So our state legislature and governor, faced with a horrific deficit, have been warring over next year's budget. Emails abound about library cuts, early learning initiative cuts, everything-else-under-the-sun cuts, and they're all bad, Bad, BAD. Everyone is calling for everyone else to email/write/call their state lawmakers and complain.
The problem is - Ohio simply doesn't have enough money. No amount of teeth-gnashing and persuasive pontificating is going to change that fact. So what do we do?
Increase revenue? (Insert ominous music here)
The Republicans who have controlled Ohio's legislature (seeming FOREVER - seriously) are drooling at the prospect of our Democratic governor raising taxes. They're waiting with pens poised over paper to begin the next gubertanorial campaign to oust our well meaning but not aggressive enough (imo) leader. Democrats, meanwhile, are just as guilty, afraid to even utter the word in their sleep for fear of inciting that very wrath.
Yep, our state lawmakers are more concerned about keeping their jobs, and increasing their positions of power than they are about their consituents and future health of the state. Instead of solving the problem (which does not necessarily include raising taxes on the already beleaguered citizens), they're covering their own asses.
I'm so proud.
FYI: There s $7 Billion a year in tax credits, exemptions and deductions in Ohio's tax code that our legislature is completely ignoring.
For example, payday lenders, mortgage brokers and other financial companies pay taxes at a lower effective rate than banks. Erase that relief and the state would collect nearly $10 million PER YEAR.
A few years ago, our forward thinking state decided that if you managed to survive to senior citizenship, then you simply shouldn't have to pay property taxes. Doesn't matter if you're a retired CEO sitting in a $5 million dollar house - no property taxes. If we corrected that little mess, limiting the exemption to something reasonable, we could rake in another $140 million PER YEAR.
Or wait - extend sales tax to entertainment events, lobbying and debt collection (and who doesn't want to tax debt collectors and lobbyists out of existence??) - $90 million annually.
Here's another little nuggest: the state of Ohio caps the amount of sales tax paid by those buying fractions of private jets to $800. WTF? you should be asking. What the hell is so special about people who can afford even a PART of a PRIVATE JET that they should be tax break?! Without this cap, the typical average sales tax on one-eighth of a jet would run in the vicinity of $45,000. Instead, these wealthy individuals are writing checks smaller than the sales tax on the average automobile - $100.
So, if you want to see libraries, early learning initiatives and other such programs continue to exist, insist that our state legislatures get their heads out of their butts and address some of these egregious tax breaks. If they refuse, vote them the hell out of office. Then follow through.
The Office of Budget and Management
Ohio Department of Taxation
So our state legislature and governor, faced with a horrific deficit, have been warring over next year's budget. Emails abound about library cuts, early learning initiative cuts, everything-else-under-the-sun cuts, and they're all bad, Bad, BAD. Everyone is calling for everyone else to email/write/call their state lawmakers and complain.
The problem is - Ohio simply doesn't have enough money. No amount of teeth-gnashing and persuasive pontificating is going to change that fact. So what do we do?
Increase revenue? (Insert ominous music here)
The Republicans who have controlled Ohio's legislature (seeming FOREVER - seriously) are drooling at the prospect of our Democratic governor raising taxes. They're waiting with pens poised over paper to begin the next gubertanorial campaign to oust our well meaning but not aggressive enough (imo) leader. Democrats, meanwhile, are just as guilty, afraid to even utter the word in their sleep for fear of inciting that very wrath.
Yep, our state lawmakers are more concerned about keeping their jobs, and increasing their positions of power than they are about their consituents and future health of the state. Instead of solving the problem (which does not necessarily include raising taxes on the already beleaguered citizens), they're covering their own asses.
I'm so proud.
FYI: There s $7 Billion a year in tax credits, exemptions and deductions in Ohio's tax code that our legislature is completely ignoring.
For example, payday lenders, mortgage brokers and other financial companies pay taxes at a lower effective rate than banks. Erase that relief and the state would collect nearly $10 million PER YEAR.
A few years ago, our forward thinking state decided that if you managed to survive to senior citizenship, then you simply shouldn't have to pay property taxes. Doesn't matter if you're a retired CEO sitting in a $5 million dollar house - no property taxes. If we corrected that little mess, limiting the exemption to something reasonable, we could rake in another $140 million PER YEAR.
Or wait - extend sales tax to entertainment events, lobbying and debt collection (and who doesn't want to tax debt collectors and lobbyists out of existence??) - $90 million annually.
Here's another little nuggest: the state of Ohio caps the amount of sales tax paid by those buying fractions of private jets to $800. WTF? you should be asking. What the hell is so special about people who can afford even a PART of a PRIVATE JET that they should be tax break?! Without this cap, the typical average sales tax on one-eighth of a jet would run in the vicinity of $45,000. Instead, these wealthy individuals are writing checks smaller than the sales tax on the average automobile - $100.
So, if you want to see libraries, early learning initiatives and other such programs continue to exist, insist that our state legislatures get their heads out of their butts and address some of these egregious tax breaks. If they refuse, vote them the hell out of office. Then follow through.
The Office of Budget and Management
Ohio Department of Taxation
Wednesday, July 01, 2009
Good Music, Good Friends & A Video...
Yeah, that's me in there. Back when NEO actually HAD a music scene. Boo....
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