Arizona cuts Medicaid funding for organ transplants

[Hannah Bell]

The state of Arizona’s Medicaid program has stopped financing certain organ transplants. The move potentially affects an estimated 100 Medicaid patients who have been anxiously awaiting a transplant, but will now be denied the life-saving surgery if they cannot come up with the hundreds of thousands of dollars to pay for it if an organ donor becomes available.

Effective October 1, Arizona’s version of Medicaid—ominously named the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System (AHCCCS)—stopped covering seven types of transplants, including heart transplants for non-ischemic cardiomyopathy, lung transplants, pancreatic transplants, some bone marrow transplants, and liver transplants for patients with hepatitis C.

The Republican-controlled state legislature voted for the cuts in response to a $2.6 billion shortfall in the state’s $8.9 billion budget for fiscal year 2010. Federal law does not require states to finance organ transplants under Medicaid, the program for low-income people that is financed jointly by the state and federal governments.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/dec2010/tran-d06.shtm...

[sakabatou]

1. Republicans are now their own death panels

[JCMach1]

6. exactly, Republican death panels...

[Suich]

2. One man was already prepped for surgery,

a liver transplant, when the funding was cut off. Someone else got the donated liver.

KO's been covering this.

[dkf]

3. How many other states cover transplants through Medicaid?

[dkf]

4. Some states Medicaid programs don't cover transplants at all.

"Some States’ Medicaid programs do not cover transplantation. For more information on Medicaid, contact your financial coordinator, local Social Security office, the Social Security information line at 800-772-1213 or the financial coordinator at your transplant center."

http://organdonor.gov/transplantation/financial_resourc...

[JonLP24]

5. Where are you going with this?

Just know this is a decision made by a Republican Governor and Republican Legislature. If "some states" don't cover, than they should.

[3waygeek]

7. Keith Olbermann has been right on top of this story

for a couple of weeks now; he's had multiple interviews with people directly affected by the new policy. These people were promised transplants under AZ Medicaid, and the rug was yanked out from under them -- in one case, the patient was being prepped for his transplant surgery only to find out that Gov. Brewer had pulled the plug on the funding.

[Vinca]

8. The death penalty for becoming ill.