Organ transplants, that's their line

[azurelunatic]

In the US, Medicare covers 36 months worth of immunosuppressant drugs for transplant patients. I don't work in this field, and I don't want to be lost in a flood of near-identical clone letters, so I ditched their prepared text in favor of the short, simplified, and slightly cracktastic.



Organ transplants are for life, not just 36 months.

If you want your patient to keep the organ transplant after going to all the trouble of finding the organ and putting it in, the patient must take their immunosuppressants. This concept should not be hard to grasp.

If you want your patient to take their immunosuppressants, getting the medication must be easy and reliable. You could:

a) lean on the drug companies to make the drug available at cost
b) ensure that everyone who has an organ transplant has enough income to easily afford them
c) require that everyone who has a transplant be on private insurance and require private insurance to cover the medication without question, exception, or time limit
d) pass The Comprehensive Immunosuppressive Drug Coverage for Kidney Transplant Patients Act of 2009.

Comments

[owl]

Whut. I mean actually whut.

[azurelunatic]

This is the sort of stunt that private insurance likes to pull too.

[baggyeyes]

Companies - drug companies, insurance, the companies that make those marvelous machines that aid in the diagnostic procedure - are a BIG part in why health care costs are so damn high. These are the folks governments should be really leaning on, and leaning on hard to bring down their costs, so that people don't end up dying just because they haven't got a big enough bank account.

[baggyeyes]

Nobody ever hears about the aftermath of transplants. What people have to go through after. I had no idea about the drugs, and the forms. I wish you didn't have to go through that.

[azurelunatic]

Oh -- in case there was any confusion, that isn't firsthand experience talking. I don't have any transplanted bits myself. I know at least two people who do, though.

[azurelunatic]

Some of it's covering R&D, but some of it, a scandalous amount of it, is pure profit.

[baggyeyes]

Ah, yes. You see, I am easily confused. :-/

I do wish anybody didn't have to go through that. They should make it easier for people with life-threatening conditions to obtain medication and treatment.

[hanelissar.livejournal.com]

That's...appalling.

There is really no other word I can think of for it. It's utterly appalling.

Rarely have I been more grateful for our National Health Service, no matter how flawed it may be.

[azurelunatic]

And we call ourselves a developed country.

[khasael.livejournal.com]

Oh... don't get me started. Grr.

Not transplant-related, but we had the whole "you must take this medication and be checked twice a week so you don't get a dose that kills you... oh, but we're not going to help you get checked, and too bad for you if you can't get an appointment for 2 months. Goodbye, and good luck, I guess!"

Oh, wait, I wasn't going to get started.

Seriously, our health care system and insurance policies are so f-ed. Limits on coverage for life-long conditions and such are ri-dic-ulous.

[trixieleitz]

Even if the patient has access to the best possible care and does everything right, the graft won't last forever. That said, the expected lifetime of a graft (depending on organ and source) is still well over three years.

Man, I'm glad I live in a country with nationalised health.