Two Billion Dollars update

I got an A on that paper I wrote for my Global Health Class. Yah!! I worked very hard on it and I am curious if she will give us feedback. So far I have two B's this semester. I got a 95% on my Epidemiology Paper, which also gave me a B in that class. I have one more class I am waiting for my grade on. I hope that I also get an B in that class. If I get a C, it will put my GPA at 2.9.

2.9 sucks. 3.0 is awesome. It's all just one tenth of a point. One tenth of a point could keep me out of fucking graduate school. Of course I have one more semester, and I am in close contact with my enrollment advisor, so hopefully I will be able to bypass it. I don't know. It will truly piss me off if I can't get into graduate school because of one tenth of a point.

I have decided to get my graduate degree in Public Heath. I would like to think I can make a difference. I would like to think that I can use my education to help people. Health care is tricky. It's twisted and sometimes it seems like it has nothing to do with health. The business of helping people is still a business, unfortunately.

I was talking to my boss today about that poor girl here who died waiting for her liver transplant. She had leukemia and a bone marrow transplant which caused an infection and organ failure. One of those organs was her liver and they wanted to do a liver transplant and the insurance company would not approve it, saying it was experimental. Now, liver transplants are not experimental by any means, however, perhaps the assumption that a liver transplant would help her other organs heal?- maybe they simple were not sure. I don't really know. Apparently though, the insurance company finally DID approve the transplant, but the girl died before they were able to.

Everyone is ripping into the insurance company for denying the procedure (after initially approving it). It was after the marrow transplant and her infection and organ failure that they denied it. Either way, it's very sad. For the family and her loved ones. Very sad.

However, as a Health Care Administrator, and someone who works in a hospital, AND a mother I am forced to wonder....

This young girl had cancer. She was having organ failure and pneumonia. I'm sure there are committees and such within the insurance company (and yes, the ones who make those decisionmakers ARE doctors, I'm told) who have to weigh all of these things. I would hate to have to make that decision. The 'right thing to do' for her, may have not been the right thing for the next person, it may but too many people at risk had there been a bad outcome. She may have been waiting anyway. They never really said how far up on the donor list she was.

Should the insurance company (or anyone) pay for a very expensive procedure like this, under these circumstances, when it means that someone else who does not have cancer and who is not having organ failure does NOT get the liver? What if it was your child who needed it, what if it was your child who was next on the list?

Just thinkin... there are no good answers.