This story is based on two articles, one from Power Line and one from Fox News. As the healthcare debate has heated up, we have heard a lot about people dying because they did not have health insurance. While I am sure there may be rare cases of that occurring, I suspect they have more to do with the patient being reluctant to seek treatment than the treatment being available. I have a case in point.
Yesterday President Obama cited the case of Natoma Canfield, an Ohio woman with leukemia.
Fox News reports:
"Natoma Canfield, the cancer-stricken woman who has become a centerpiece of President Obama's push for health care reform, will not lose her home over her medical bills and will probably qualify for financial aid, a top official at the Cleveland medical center treating her told FoxNews.com."
There are, I am sure, instances where people have lost their homes due to illness. That is tragic, but I believe it is also the exception--not the rule. Americans are the most generous people on earth, and it is written into our laws that no one can be denied medical treatment if they show up at a hospital. Unfortunately, if Obamacare is put into place, elderly people may routinely be denied care due to lack of availability. The number of doctors willing to take elderly patients under the proposed regulations will be decreasing rapidly--as the population ages. We will be in danger of instituting the same kind of government rules over the availability of medical care found in Canada and England--where people can wait as much as a year for bypass surgery.
Healthcare insurance could use some reform--tort reform, portability across state lines, risk pools for people with pre-existing conditions, and tax credits to enable the poor to afford health insurance. Anything more than that will ruin the quality of care we have now.
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