Oregon health plan covers assisted suicide, not drugs, for cancer patient

Eugene, Ore., Jun 6, 2008 / 01:09 am (CNA).- An Oregon woman suffering from lung cancer was notified by the state-run Oregon Health Plan that their policy would not cover her life-extending cancer drug, telling her the health plan would cover doctor-assisted suicide instead.

Barbara Wagener discovered her lung cancer had recurred last month, the Register-Guard said. Her oncologist prescribed a drug called Tarceva, which could slow the cancer growth and extend her life.

The Oregon Health Plan notified Wagner that it would not cover the drug, but it would cover palliative care, which it said included assisted suicide.

“Treatment of advanced cancer that is meant to prolong life, or change the course of this disease, is not a covered benefit of the Oregon Health Plan,” said the letter Wagner received from LIPA, the Eugene company that administers the Oregon Health Plan in Lane County.

“I think it’s messed up,” Wagner said.  She said she was particularly upset because the letter said doctor-assisted suicide would be covered.

“To say to someone, we’ll pay for you to die, but not pay for you to live, it’s cruel,” she said. “I get angry. Who do they think they are?”

A doctor appealed to Genentech, the company that markets Tarceva in the U.S., to cover Wagner’s medication.  On Monday Wagner was told the company would cover the drug treatment for a year, after which she could re-apply for the drug.

“I am just so thrilled,” Wagner said. “I am so relieved and so happy.”

According to the Register-Guard, Oregon oncologists say they have seen a change in state health policy, saying their Oregon Health Plan patients with advanced cancer are no longer covered for chemotherapy if it is considered comfort care.

“It doesn’t adhere to the standards of care set out in the oncology community,” said Dr. John Caton, an oncologist at Willamette Valley Cancer Center. He said many studies have found that chemotherapy in a palliative setting decreases pain and time spent in the hospital and increases quality of life.

Officials of LIPA and the state Health Services Commission, which sets policy for the Oregon Health Plan, say they have not changed their coverage of recurrent cancer patients, but have only clarified the rules.

Oregon Tells Patients State Will Pay for Assisted Suicide, Not Health Care

by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
July 30, 2008

Salem, OR (LifeNews.com) –– It's happened again –– another Oregon resident has heard form state officials that it will happily pay for an assisted suicide but will not pay for the medical treatment he needs. For the second time in just over the last month, a patient has said the state health insurance plan has promoted death over medical care.

Randy Stroup is a 53-year-old Dexter, Oregon resident who faces a troubling bout of prostate cancer.

As an uninsured resident with a need for expensive chemotherapy he applied to the Oregon health insurance plan for help.

Lane Individual Practice Association administers the Oregon Health Plan in Stroup's county and they responded to his request with a letter saying the state would not cover the treatment but would pay for an assisted suicide.
"It dropped my chin to the floor," Stroup told FOX News. "[How could they] not pay for medication that would help my life, and yet offer to pay to end my life?"

The letter has been sent to other terminal patients in the state and it follows state legislative guidelines saying the state will not cover life-prolonging treatment unless there is a better than five percent chance the patient will live for five or more years.

Dr. John Sattenspiel, LIPA's senior medical director, defended the practice of promoting assisted suicide in comments to Fox News.

"I have had patients who would consider knowing that this is part of that range of comfort care or palliative care services that are still available to them, they would be comforted by that," Sattenspiel said. "It really depends on the individual patient."

But Dr. William Toffler, a professor of family medicine at Oregon Health & Science University, disagrees.

"It's chilling when you think about it," he told Fox News. It absolutely conveys to the patient that continued living isn't worthwhile. It corrupts the consistent medical ethic that has been in place for 2,000 years."

California-based attorney and author Wesley J. Smith agrees that the Oregon system is hypocritical.

"And now the oozing compassion of assisted suicide is revealed to all. And the same agenda is at the root of Futile Care Theory. When life gets tough, it is time for the ill to get going onto whatever comes next," he explained.

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Funny, the pro life crowd for years has been predicting this.  

When society has made the murdering of the unborn simply a woman's "choice", why is anyone surprised at this?

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Funny, the pro life crowd for years has been predicting this.  

When society has made the murdering of the unborn simply a woman's "choice", why is anyone surprised at this?

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Huh?  You're talking about the same crowd who is almost across the board against using taxpayer money for healthcare but now it's cruel to let people die if they can't afford it?  Seems like some people want it both ways.

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Huh?  You're talking about the same crowd who is almost across the board against using taxpayer money for healthcare but now it's cruel to let people die if they can't afford it?  Seems like some people want it both ways.

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...and this is what euthanasia opponents have been worried about for years. Once government makes it OK to kill you, then it baby-steps to the point where that's your prescription.

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So a DOCTOR prescribes a medication for a patient, and the GOVERNMENT steps in and says "no".

Remember that next time Obama & Co. tell you that they won't be making decisions your doctor should be making.

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Uh the Oregon health care plan is for the un insured.. and a LOT of welfair leaches are on it.. So I can see them doing this.. I knew a few guys that were doing chemo when I was that were not insured. there funding came for the cancer association.. and they covered quite a bit..

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They are not forcing you to go die.  They are telling you that there is no 'fix' for your problem, merely extensions.  

Insurance, especially public health care, does not and should not cover 'elective' health care.  Which I believe simple extension of life is.

Your right to life ends when your body does, not when we run out of money putting everyone with an incurable condition in an ICU.

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Hate to rain on the anti-Obamacare parade, but most private health insurances wouldn't cover this treatment either.  It fails to meet the 5-year survivability rate necessary to be considered a "treatment" for cancer.  She's going to die with or without this drug.  The only question is whether it's within 6 months or within 3 years.  This drug will in no way cure her cancer.  All the drug does is cost $5000 a month to give her an 11% chance of living a few more months than someone who doesn't take the drug.

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Again, Obama care will leave no alternative.  I've experienced a loved one's battle with cancer, and while this person eventually succumbed as we all knew she would, we had about six extra months of very high-quality time together.  Plenty of chances to say goodbyes, get the estate in order, etc.  Why should I not be allowed to choose to do this if I can arrange funding as I can now? Your approach is pretty heartless.  Just for curiosity's sake, are you under 40?

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Once again, under Obama care, you won't have the choice.  If I can pay for it now or, as in the case of the woman in the article, a charitable contribution will pay for it, why should I be denied the choice to live a few extra months to say my goodbyes and get my affairs in order?

The bottom line is, Obama care will remove your choice in matters pertaining to your own health, placing the decisions instead in the hands of bureaucrats.  Is that really a good idea, and is that price worth being able to say, "I have government health insurance?"

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It's amazing that some would say just let them die, scum sucking up my tax dollars........God forbid you or your loved ones have to face this same decision one day. What would you say then?

We work and pay into the "system" all of our lives, then this is what you have to look forward to. I wouldn't wish this type of health care on my worst enemy.

Too many people are cruel and heart-less, but it's ok as long as it's someone else. Poor mis-guided fools....

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Maybe you can point out where I said you can't?

You can get all the health care you can afford, my point is these stories are about people who have no financial ability of their own to pay for their treatment.  Treatment which will at best provide a minimal extension of life.  Couple that with knowing that in someway, my tax dollars are being spent to keep someone who smoked pack after pack a day alive at some exorbitant cost, I would rather spend my money on my own insurance.

Yes, I'm 25 and my heart bleeds for no one but children, they are the only ones truly not in control of their situation.

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Are you honestly arguing that Obamacare going to remove the option to pay for extra/uncovered treatment out-of-pocket?  Because if you are, you're dead wrong.  In fact, just like in every other country with socialized medicine, the private pay options are going to develop into a completely independent health system where cold hard cash will get you any treatment you want/need.  (And once again, the rich will be the only group that can afford this treatment.)  

Honestly, your argument doesn't make any sense.  In order for the government to be the ONLY provider of healthcare (at any price), our entire economic system would have to be destroyed (which is definitely a possibility at this point I guess, but NOT with just one healthcare law), since the nature of the free market is that government shortfalls would continuously drive businesses into filling the gaps in government sponsored care at their best possible price point.

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Are you honestly arguing that Obamacare going to remove the option to pay for extra/uncovered treatment out-of-pocket?  Because if you are, you're dead wrong.  In fact, just like in every other country with socialized medicine, the private pay options are going to develop into a completely independent health system where cold hard cash will get you any treatment you want/need.  (And once again, the rich will be the only group that can afford this treatment.)  

Honestly, your argument doesn't make any sense.  In order for the government to be the ONLY provider of healthcare (at any price), our entire economic system would have to be destroyed (which is definitely a possibility at this point I guess, but NOT with just one healthcare law), since the nature of the free market is that government shortfalls would continuously drive businesses into filling the gaps in government sponsored care at their best possible price point.

Most analysts also agree that mandating participation by all (or most) individuals, and ensuring that risk-sharing is standard across the market, are keys to the success of any health exchange. The AHCA does include an individual mandate. Penalties would be assessed for individuals who fail to obtain coverage (and are not otherwise exempt) through a qualified plan. What constitutes a “qualified plan” is not yet determined, but there would be reporting requirements introduced as a means to enforcing it.

Despite the negative rhetoric about individual mandates, it is an essential piece to the overall puzzle and the wisdom behind “community rating.” The only way the health care system will be able to absorb the costs of including individuals with pre-existing conditions, is by ensuring the young and healthy demographic are enrolled in a minimal “catastrophic illness” plan, thereby allowing the healthy to subsidize the costs of the sick.

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One of the key points of the HilaryCare debacle was the removal of the ability of anyone to practice private medicine.

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Yep.  Read the bill.

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This ain't hillarycare.  This pile of stupid is so large it needs its own zipcode.

There has been very little dialog on this point, but both medicare and the VA need private medicine.  In fact, the only reason that they aren't completely useless is because they piggyback on private medicine.  Medicare would cost at least three times as much as it currently does without the private system to eat much of the cost, and the VA would be hopelessly buried under its own paperwork.

I'm not saying that the government won't eliminate private care, but if they actually intend on providing healthcare (instead of just promising) of similar quality, they're going to need to leave the private system to do its thing.

Are you honestly arguing that Obamacare going to remove the option to pay for extra/uncovered treatment out-of-pocket? Because if you are, you're dead wrong.

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this pisses me off to no end! and fuck their "assisted suicide". my god.

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Wait a minute –– you just said to me:

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We are headed for that and worse!



I predict that doctor prescribed euthanasia will be the state health care program's treatment plan for some medical problems. Keeping the terminally ill alive and comfortable will become too expensive for the state, best to end it quick...and cheap!

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I just said it could happen.  (It's the government afterall.)  However, Obamacare (in its current form) doesn't do it.  

The point was that without the private care system, government healthcare simply won't work.  So, in context that statement is actually saying that the government won't eliminate private care if they actually want a healthcare system that works.  As an isolated statement it is contradictory...

Most analysts also agree that mandating participation by all (or most) individuals, and ensuring that risk-sharing is standard across the market, are keys to the success of any health exchange. The AHCA does include an individual mandate. Penalties would be assessed for individuals who fail to obtain coverage (and are not otherwise exempt) through a qualified plan. What constitutes a “qualified plan” is not yet determined, but there would be reporting requirements introduced as a means to enforcing it.

ETA: Since there is more than one version of health care reform out there, this is from an AP story posted at CBS News:

House Democratic bill:
REQUIREMENTS FOR INDIVIDUALS: Individuals must have insurance, enforced through tax penalty with hardship waivers. The penalty is 2.5 percent of income.

REQUIREMENTS FOR EMPLOYERS: Employers must provide insurance to their employees or pay a penalty of 8 percent of payroll. Companies with payroll under $250,000 annually are exempt.

Employers could apply for a two-year exemption from the mandate if they can prove the requirements would result in job losses that would negatively impact their communities.

HOW YOU CHOOSE YOUR HEALTH INSURANCE: Through a new Health Insurance Exchange open to individuals and, initially, small employers; it could be expanded to large employers over time. States could opt to operate their own exchanges in place of the national exchange if they follow federal rules.

Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee:
REQUIREMENTS FOR INDIVIDUALS: Individuals will have to have insurance, enforced through tax penalty with hardship waivers.

REQUIREMENTS FOR EMPLOYERS: Employers who don't offer coverage will pay a penalty of $750 a year for each full-time worker. Businesses with 25 or fewer workers are exempt.

HOW YOU CHOOSE YOUR HEALTH INSURANCE: Individuals and small businesses could purchase insurance through state-based purchasing pools called American Health Benefit Gateways.

plan under discussion by a bipartisan group of six senators on the Finance Committee:
REQUIREMENTS FOR INDIVIDUALS: Expected to include a requirement for individuals to get coverage.

REQUIREMENTS FOR EMPLOYERS: In lieu of requiring employers to provide coverage, lawmakers are considering a "free rider" penalty based on how much the government ends up paying for workers' coverage.

HOW YOU CHOOSE YOUR HEALTH INSURANCE: State-based exchanges.

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Just waiting for them to fuck with the wrong guy on this one.  A tiger is at its most dangerous when it knows the end is near.

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Has "advanced cancer" and "recurrance of lung cancer" this leads to a very bad prognosis.
At this point, you are basically just throwing money away to "treat" that health care problem.