Dad’s Life or Yours? You Choose

[Are_grits_groceries]

So what would you do if your mom or dad, or perhaps your sister or brother, needed a kidney donation and you were the one best positioned to donate?

Most of us would worry a little and then step forward. But not so fast. Because of our dysfunctional health insurance system, a disgrace that nearly half of all members of Congress seem determined to cling to, stepping up to save a loved one can ruin your own chance of ever getting health insurance.
<snip>
Mr. Waddington has polycystic kidney disease, or PKD, a genetic disorder that leads to kidney failure. First he lost one kidney, and then the other. A year ago, he was on dialysis and desperately needed a new kidney. Doctors explained that the best match — the one least likely to be rejected — would perhaps come from Travis or Michael, his two sons, then ages 29 and 27.

Travis and Michael each had a 50 percent chance of inheriting PKD. And if pre-donation testing revealed that one of them had the disorder, that brother might never be able to get health insurance. As a result, their doctors had advised not getting tested. After all, new research suggests that lack of insurance increases a working-age person’s risk of dying in any given year by 40 percent.
<snip>
David Waddington finally got that transplant when a kidney from a deceased donor became available. But our insurance system has had other excruciating consequences for the Waddingtons. Though PKD has no cure as such, there are experimental medications that may delay kidney problems. To get access to the medications, a patient must be tested — and since Travis and Michael Waddington don’t dare get tested, they don’t have access to these medications.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/04/opinion/04kristof.html?ref=opinion

Read all of this horrible story. Members of Congress ought to be dragged by their ears to meet these people. The MSM media needs to cover these stories instead of the cowardly Congress and teabaggers.

SHAME!

[GCP]

1. It's obscene

And what's even more obscene is that there are 'democrats' in congress who are against a public option, never mind single payer.

[Fumesucker]

2. I can think of something else I'd rather drag them by..

:grr:

[Pab Sungenis]

3. Yet some people on here want to reward the insurance companies doing this nonsense.

Kill the Baucus bill NOW.