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OpEdNews Op Eds    H4'ed 2/6/10

Guess What? We Already Have Death Panels

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Sarah Palin and the anti-healthcare yahoos have made a huge fuss about government bureaucrats deciding when grandma should die. News Flash: This has already been going on for years, and will continue as long as insurance company drones are in charge.

What do I mean? Let's say your seventy-five year old grandmother, Helen, will die if she doesn't have a liver transplant. You've paid your premiums to Blue Cross on time for years. Who will decide if Helen gets that liver transplant? The Blue Cross equivalent of a government bureaucrat, some mousy little sadist with a pen and a calculator, who gets a hefty bonus every time he finds some reason to deny a claim. Yes, these scumbags really exist, and every insurance company employs them.

So what will this guy do to figure out a way to deny Grandma Helen her expensive liver transplant? Almost anything. He needs that bonus to buy a new car. So he'll look over her record and discover that she had strep throat when she was 6 and, given that this is a pre-existing condition that Helen didn't mention in her Blue Cross application, he will deny the claim. Grandma Helen will die a miserable death. The mousy guy will get a bonus and buy a new car.

If this isn't a death panel, I don't know what is. It's just costing us more.

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John Blumenthal Social Media Pages: Facebook page url on login Profile not filled in       Twitter page url on login Profile not filled in       Linkedin page url on login Profile not filled in       Instagram page url on login Profile not filled in

John Blumenthal has been a professional comedy writer for 25 years. A former associate editor and columnist at Playboy Magazine (following a short stint at Esquire), he's written 8 books and 2 produced movies. His films include "Short Time," (major (more...)
 
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