A Cautionary Tale of Government Health Plans

Pancreatic cancer is an awful, terrible and painful disease. In my family, we lost two women, about 14 years apart. Both my grandmother and my second cousin died within five to six weeks of diagnosis. My grandmother was on Medicare; my second cousin was likely on public assistance, as she had not been able to work in years. My second cousin was sent home, without any support, with instructions to try drink Boost or Ensure, to die. The so-called medical professionals had tried to do that with my grandmother, too, but, because of their failure to treat her to keep her from forming blood clots, she suffered a stroke while they were moving her, and she couldn’t leave the hospital. The important lesson here: without treatment, pancreatic cancer kills in an extremely short period of time (generally five to six weeks).

Now, let’s juxtapose the above cases with two other high profile cases: Patrick Swayze and Carnegie Mellon University Professor Randy Pausch (who co-wrote “The Last Lecture”). I do not begrudge these men the treatment they received – in fact, I think it’s the type of treatment all people suffering from and fighting pancreatic cancer should receive. These men apparently had private insurance and were not on any form of public assistance or Medicare. And they did indeed receive treatment. As a result of the treatment they received, Patrick lived approximately 20 months after diagnosis; and Randy lived approximately 23 months past diagnosis. These men were given the chance to come to grips with their diagnoses, accept them, get their affairs in order, and most importantly spend time with their families. There was also a public benefit to the treatment they received. With each victim of pancreatic cancer who fights, we as a society are benefited by learning what treatments work, and which don’t, which ultimately will lead us to a cure for this devastating disease. So, I have respect for these men, and thanks for them for fighting and for helping science improve its knowledge of this disease, what makes it tick, and how to fight it.

Finally, let’s compare the above cases to that of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Ginsburg, who was diagnosed, thanks to our tax dollars paying for her ultimate health care coverage, with pancreatic cancer early this year. Ginsburg, 75, was undergoing a CAT scan” during a routine annual check-up at the National Institutes of Health” when the small tumor was spotted. How many taxpayers get CAT scans during our routine check-ups, whether we are insured or on Medicare or Medicaid? I have never heard of such a thing. If I go to my primary care physician and request, during my routine annual checkup, to have a CAT scan performed, I can just imagine the hysterical laughter that would greet me in response. Yet, Ginsburg, older than my grandmother was at the time of her diagnosis, was not sent home to die, like my grandmother, for all intents and purposes was. Instead, she is getting treatment, state of the art treatment, no doubt, starting with surgery at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York this past February. http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2009/02/05/understanding-justice-ginsburgs-pancreatic-cancer/ All at taxpayer expense, thanks to the extremely generous health care package our elected officials have awarded themselves, the President and his family and the Justices of the Supreme Court, and others.

When and if the federal government rushes through a health care plan for Americans, rest assured it will never resemble the health care plan that Justice Ginsburg has. It won’t even resemble the health care Patrick Swayze and Randy Pausch had. You can bet on it that it will resemble what my grandmother and second cousin had, and you should pray that you never suffer from pancreatic cancer, because under any health care plan the government promulgates, you *will* be sent home to die. Our federal government, when it comes to health care, has acted like the pigs in George Orwell’s Animal Farm, saving the milk and cream for themselves, and giving us, the taxpayers, who do the work for the country, only poor and dwindling rations. Unless and until the Congress, the President, and the Supreme Court Justices, as well as any other officials covered by that plan, give up the “ultimate” health care plan, as I call it, and join their fellow Americans in the proposed health can plan, you can be sure that any plan they propose for taxpayers will be monumentally subpar to their own.