ScienceDaily reports that:
Healthy living kidney donors often face pointless post-donation hurdles when seeking or changing health or life insurance, according to results of a new study by Johns Hopkins researchers.
"Living donors are some of the healthiest people in the United States. They're heavily screened before they're approved for donation and should be easily insurable," says study leader Dorry Segev, M.D., Ph.D., M.H.S., an associate professor of surgery and epidemiology at The Johns Hopkins University.
Further:
Little evidence suggests any extra health risks or a shortened life span after live kidney donation, says Segev, an abdominal transplant surgeon, but he and his colleagues had heard stories from their patients about insurance troubles after donation. Seeking hard data about such anecdotal tales, the researchers surveyed 1,046 people who donated a kidney at The Johns Hopkins Hospital between 1970 and 2011. They asked them whether they had initiated or changed health or life insurance in the years after their donation and whether they had any problems with the process. They also explored possible reasons for their problems.
Reporting online July 16 in the American Journal of Transplantation, Segev's team says that among 395 donors who tried to initiate or change health insurance after donation, 7 percent (27) said they faced problems. Some 15 were denied health insurance altogether, 12 were charged a higher premium and eight were told that donating a kidney was a "pre-existing condition."
Among 186 donors who tried to initiate or change life insurance after donation, 25 percent (46) reported problems: 23 were denied life insurance altogether, 27 were charged a higher premium and 17 were told that donating a kidney was a pre-existing condition.
Segev notes that some of the hurdles may have been a result of misinterpretation of kidney function tests needed for securing some health or life insurance policies. Although routine kidney function test results change after kidney donation, results aren't necessarily a sign of kidney disease, he says. Nevertheless, he adds, donors and their transplant center doctors are often put in the position of having to explain these results to insurance companies and argue for coverage.
Just socialize healthcare already.
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Acxiom Corp. (ACXM) and LexisNexis are two of the largest data brokers who collect such information on individuals. They say their data are supposed to be used only for marketing, not for medical purposes or to be included in medical records. Both sell to health insurers, but say it's to help those companies offer better services to members. Credit card usage may now affect health care premiums.
(Score: 1) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 17 2014, @05:54AM
The money belongs to the corporation. It earned that money. You didn't earn that money.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by cafebabe on Thursday July 17 2014, @07:06AM
Civilized countries do healthcare at the national level. In addition to gaining economies of scale, it eliminates a large amount of extraneous cost, such as the mass marketing of prescription pharmaceuticals, $1,772.42 taxis with flashing lights [nytimes.com], the overhead of doctors getting $100,000 per year public liability insurance, it reduces the overhead of doctors ordering batteries of tests and then being unable to interpret the results [soylentnews.org] and it cuts down on the number of people who do their own surgery to save money but then have to get it fixed anyhow.
Yes, socialized healthcare suffers from public sector inefficiency. Health workers can make irrational decisions and health workers can be some of the unhealthiest people around [soylentnews.org]. However, they can be held to account and the unhealthy ones are in the proximity of *doctors*.
Oh, and the old, the infirm and the unemployed get equal access. But if you think your employer should determine your access to healthcare [soylentnews.org], I'm unlikely to convince you.
1702845791×2
(Score: 2) by kaganar on Thursday July 17 2014, @03:50PM
Heh, I know this isn't really a useful anecdote, but it amuses me: I was recently the last of a short chain of cars involved in an auto accident. I walked away from the accident but with some symptoms I was unable to account for so I sought ER attention. I was rushed away in an ambulance to a hospital literally across the street. (In retrospect I should have walked but I was dazed.)
The bill for the ambulance alone? $1,300. To be fair, they were on site for about half an hour, three ambulances showed up but only they were needed, and like all services which are on call they have to cover their expenses while waiting, so I expect the cost is more of a flat fee than mileage based, but I have no way to know how much the figures are marked up.
Amusingly, the wrecker my car was towed to charges insurance companies a higher rate and individuals a lower rate "because they can't afford it". I have to wonder if he drives illegally without car insurance because where we live it's some of the most expensive in the country and he's contributing in a small way to it. (In truth, the state laws appear the main reason -- everyone lawyers up because it's so easy to get some a pretty good chunk of money as long as you're under a certain limit.)
Of course, my health insurance (which was billed for some reason instead of my auto insurance) representitives can't explain any of the charges, what exactly is covered, or who would know the answer to these questions because that information isn't made available to them. Interestingly, my health insurance did manage to have many items arbitrarily "discounted". I've seen hospital bills before, and things don't get discounted for individuals.
Stepping up on the soapbox: Many of my fellow US citizens seem to be worried about a corrupt government controlling their lives ("death panels" etc.). I'm not seeing how that's worse than the kind of everyday corruption I encounter in the health system now purported to be "business decisions" -- at least a shift would give us an opportunity for better that other countries have taken the initiative in demonstrating is possible.
If the goal is to cut out the corruption then the mechanism leading the charge is transparency. Obtaining transparency in government a battle with a few beasts, but obtaining transparency in hundreds of insurance companies, every hospital network, very wealthy pharmaceutical companies, and emergency services providers is battle with endless beasts.
... when did my posts start getting this long?
(Score: 2) by Tramii on Thursday July 17 2014, @04:33PM
Because some people don't see a difference between government and corporations. To them, the government is simply the biggest, most powerful monopoly around. They'd rather contend with a bunch of local warlords instead of one, all-powerful dictator (so to speak).
Getting an unwilling government to be transparent is just about impossible, short of a bloody revolution. We are currently having great difficulties in getting any sort of real transparency into the actions of the NSA and the spying done upon American citizens. If I had to choose between a fight with 10,000 corrupt companies or a fight with my own corrupt government, I'd say the former would be far easier.
(Score: 2) by strattitarius on Thursday July 17 2014, @07:33PM
Slashdot Beta Sucks. Soylent Alpha Rules. News at 11.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by jbWolf on Thursday July 17 2014, @06:48AM
Wow. I mean, just WOW.
If there is any doubt in anyone's mind that we (as a society) think people who are selfless and help others are worthless, here's an easy statistic to shine a light in that dark corner. Don't insurance companies see that the medical societies have enough problems with getting people to donate blood or donate organs without this kind of stupidity? One of my bosses tried to save his brother by donating part of his liver -- a very painful thing (physically and mentally) that he went through from what he told me. As it is, it's not a thing he likes to talk about (because his brother was not saved by the procedure and it very much bothers him all these years later). To think his story might be used as an example as to why people shouldn't try saving a lives is unfathomable and beyond comprehension. His story is one that should be highlighted as the right thing to do.
Sick; Disgusting; Unbelievable. I'm trying to find the right words, but there are none to truly describe how hideous this is.
www.jb-wolf.com [jb-wolf.com]
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 17 2014, @07:30AM
Welcome to the wonderful world of private health insurance!
(Score: 2) by AnonTechie on Thursday July 17 2014, @07:33AM
Well said. There are good Samaritans who donate blood, bone marrow (for cancer patients), organs, etc. Are they all to be discriminated against for health insurance or made to pay way more than others ? Next, I would expect that insurance companies would deny health insurance to those people who have received donated organs.
Albert Einstein - "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 17 2014, @07:37AM
You mean that doesn't happen already? I mean, those people have to take anti-rejection drugs for the rest of their life - miss even one dose and they could die. How are we supposed to make money if we might actually have to pay out claims?
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 17 2014, @12:11PM
Not under the affordable care act. Before health care reform, someone who was diagnosed as needing a transplant could pretty much not get insurance (except for 27 states offering "high risk" pools). His insurance company at the time of diagnosis couldn't drop him, but if he lost his job (say, for health-related absences) or missed a premium payment, he would never get another policy. That, of course, would mean he would never get a transplant (because 99.2% of transplants go to insured patients [nih.gov]). Likewise, post-transplant, his pre-existing condition would make him ineligible for most insurance policies, regardless whether the transplant cured the underlying pathology or not.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 17 2014, @02:05PM
Medical insurance, yes. Life insurance, however isn't covered by that law.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 17 2014, @05:18PM
> Medical insurance, yes. Life insurance, however isn't covered by that law.
Nor is driver's insurance or home owner's insurance.
What's your point?
(Score: 4, Funny) by aristarchus on Thursday July 17 2014, @07:28AM
One of the most dangerous ideas of socialism, and communism, and pre-school, is that people could possibly do things out of just love for their fellow human, like sharing. If an idea like this should get widespread acceptance, there would be no way to predict what people would do, because all our models of rational maximizers of self-interest (Hello! Economists!) would be thrown right out the window. Who knows, a Tunisian street vendor could just set himself on fire for no good rational reason, and all hell would break out. This is why altruism is one of the most difficult issues in ethical theory, since it lays out the line between the egoists (and their selfish genes), and the people they never get to reproduce with, since they will only help if there is something in it for them. Guess where capitalism lies, and why prostitution as an industry only arises with the onset of the capitalism mode of production. So, we are sick of this, by now?
(Score: 1) by NoMaster on Thursday July 17 2014, @08:00AM
The type of facile, historically-ignorant, shallow-thinking bullshit that believes "prostitution as an industry only arises with the onset of the capitalism mode of production"?
Yup, well sick of it...
Live free or fuck off and take your naïve Libertarian fantasies with you...
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Thursday July 17 2014, @09:02AM
Maybe you missed the point. Prior to capitalism, prostitution was either a craft (not an industry, no capitalists _pimps_) or a charity. So where do you see the historical ignorance? Read Marx's analysis of "commodities" at the beginning of _Capital_. (and, hint, history is determined by ideology, so we are not at all dealing with the same history. And never play cards with a person who has donated a kidney! Seriously)
(Score: 1) by tibman on Thursday July 17 2014, @04:06PM
So the prostitution industry can only exist if private individuals create and own a brothel? Prior to capitalism this prostitution "craft" operated differently how? Zero difference as far as i can tell. If the state has fixed sex prices that doesn't suddenly turn it from an industry to a craft.
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by khallow on Thursday July 17 2014, @06:12PM
What makes it dangerous is the assumption that altruism will prevail just because. People will be altruistic under circumstances where you'd expect the opposite. Conversely, they will act selfish even in straightforward cases where it doesn't benefit themselves. I'm reminded of a quote by Machiavelli on this very subject:
Every political system has to come to grips with the problem that societies are made of humans who routinely pursue their own interests at the expense of others - no matter how many applications of pixie dust you use or how pink your glasses are. Capitalism has the considerable virtue of aligning personal interest with benefit to society. Socialism and communism have long, long histories of creating easily abusable public goods and then having to more thoroughly regulate their citizens' lives in order to attempt to redress the problems that they just created.