My Blogging Debut

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, Happy Hannukah, Joyous Kwanzaa and Jolly Yule, Happy Holidays to all (in case I missed anyone).
Blogging is something I've thought about in a general way for quite awhile. As someone who always has something to say (whether anyone wants to listen or not), I decided to take the plunge -- call it an early New Year's resolution. So the first question is what to blog about? I titled my blog "A Little Bit of Everything", because I tend to follow current events, sports, politics, etc. rather closely, and I most always have an opinion -- sometimes a very passionate one. It seemed a good place to start, and I guess we'll see where it leads me.
So, the issue which has been on my mind of late is one that is particularly sad and disturbing to me in light of the holiday season -- the sad fate of Nataline Sarkisyan -- a 17 year old girl whose sole crimes against humanity seemed to be having leukemia and wanting to live to see adulthood. Yet seemingly through the fault of many, she was allowed to die because it was deemed too costly to allow her to live. As a talk radio and internet news junkie, I have heard a variety of opinions on this tragic situation, and I have heard blame placed in a number of places: Cigna -- the insurance company that originally denied coverage of a procedure they deemed experimental; UCLA medical center -- the hospital providing care to the girl who chose not to perform the transplant without confirmation of insurance coverage; surgeons -- who did not perform the transplant without the hospital's support and consent;and even the girl's parents -- for not somehow finding the money on their own to pay for this procedure which they viewed as life-saving.
In my humble opinion, the heart of the issue is larger than one team of surgeons, one medical center, or even one insurance company, because let's face it -- not many of us would have been surprised to read the name of any of a number of different companies in that headline. The issue -- as the Democratic presidential candidates continue to remind us -- is a healthcare system desperately in need of repair. And yet, although I realize it is the holiday season, as much as I have heard said about this story I have been unable to find any comments made by any presidential candidate other than John Edwards (who uses the tragedy as a further rationale for his plan to take the power away from the insurance companies. This is probably one of the very few things I agree with John Edwards about -- the insurance companies have far too much power -- over the lives of individual Americans, and with their political contributions and lobbyists, over the legislative process. But is "universal healthcare" going to solve this problem? Apparently, Ms. Sarkisyan would have been better off had she not had health insurance at all -- in the past, UCLA has performed transplants on uninsured patients. So it would seem that mandating health insurance for all (Hillary Clinton) would not be ideal in some cases.
What this story plays on -- as do some of the candidates with their arguments for universal healthcare -- is our own individual desire to protect our loved ones. When looking at this story through the lens of my own family -- what if Nataline Sarkisyan had been one of my daughters? -- I feel genuine outrage at the seemingly needless death of this young girl. I am furious that insurance executives are making life and death decisions instead of medical professionals. I am incensed that a hospital allowed a patient to die, when they had the power to save her, but the funding was uncertain. There are undoubtedly the makings of a great Lifetime movie here! But the other lens we need to remember, is that of the greater good. What would the far-reaching implications for the hospital have beed if they had performed this procedure without clearance from Cigna? If insurance companies were to routinely cover "experimental" procedures (and I freely admit that the word "experimental" is still in question as of yet in this case) that are now routinely denied under most policies, what would that do to premiums? If forced to choose a more expensive policy that would cover these procedures, what would most Americans choose for their families? What could most families afford to choose? Although it is easy to place blame when a child dies, the miracle of modern medicine has elevated our expectations to a perhaps unsustainable level. Medical care is expensive. Someone has to pay, but who, and how much? Who is responsible to make these decisions? To what are we as Americans entitled to when it comes to our well-being, and the well-being of our families? I don't have the answers, but I haven't heard a politician yet who I believe has the answers either. What I hope we can take away from this tragedy, from the sad death of this young American, is the courage to ask these questions to those we expect to lead us into the future, and to demand as answers more than a sound byte that will gain points in the next poll.
My "little bit of something" for the day--
Tracy Brady

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