Girl Dies After Insurance Controversy
I hate to be a downer during all of the holiday cheer, but this story struck me. Nataline Sarkisyan, 17, of Glendale, CA, died Dec. 20 amid a flurry of protest about Cigna's decision not to cover a liver transplant that may have prolonged or saved Sarkisyan's life.
"Protestors are here, the war is here," Hilda Sarkisyan, the teen's mother, told the group hours before her daughter's death. "We have a war here."
The Sarkisyan family claims that Cigna first agreed to the liver transplant surgery and had secured a match weeks ago. After the teen, who was battling leukemia, received a bone marrow transplant from her brother, however, she suffered a lung infection, and the insurer backed away from what it felt had become too risky a procedure.
"They're the ones who caused this. They're the one that told us to go there, and they would pay for the transplant," Hilda Sarkisyan said.
Sarkisyan's death brings many questions and much finger pointing. Many who commented on the article side with the girl's family and put the blame squarely on the shoulders of the insurer, Cigna. Cigna did, hours before the girl's death, change its decision to fund the transplant procedure, and, according to statement, "decided to make an exception in this rare and unusual case and we will provide coverage should she proceed with the requested liver transplant."
Sarkisyan's condition, however, may have rendered the procedure too risky, some said, because the girl was already in a vegetative state, according to an AP article, and had complications from a recent bone marrow transplant used to treat her leukemia. According to the article, the medical staff at UCLA Medical Center "felt comfortable performing the medical procedure."
Others lay the blame on the hospital for not just going ahead with the procedure despite potential non-payment. One commenter proclaimed (in typical Internet forum atrocious grammar and spelling), "WHAT CIGNA did was their job, review a claim for medical approval. what the DOCTORS/UCLA did was incomprehensible. if they felt the surgery was needed they SHOULD HAVE DONE IT. wait is it possible UCLA put money in front of this poor girls need?????"
Some even looked to the family-did the family sell everything they owned to ensure they could pay for the procedure that would potentially help Sarkisyan? Why didn't the family do everything they could financially to ensure that the procedure was completed, or did they already do everything they could?
And lastly, others debated whether or not the government was at fault for a broken health care system, with calls for government-run health care abounding. If the government ran the health care system and power was taken away from the insurance companies, some said, this never would have occurred.
Out of tragedy springs the blame game. It's easy to blame the big, bad insurance company, but could others have been at fault here, too? And who's to say that the transplant would've been a silver bullet, prompting a miraculous recovery from a girl who was obviously very sick?
In the end, the girl's death, beyond bringing up political and moral discussions, may just be further pulling back the curtain on the gaping holes in the current health care system in America. Or it may just become another tale to be told in a future Michael Moore film. Either way, questions need to be answered.