In the poker game of life, young Brady Hardin drew a lousy hand.
Born in St. Charles Medical Center in Bend in 1963 1993, he suffered from a rare, complex medical syndrome that caused cerebral palsy and inadequate development of his lungs, bladder and kidneys. Doctors at Oregon Health Sciences University, where he was transferred shortly after birth, urged his parents to let them take him off life support because if he survived he was likely to be “a vegetable.”
Brady beat the odds and lived – and he’s far from being a vegetable. Today he’s a student at Mountain View High School who, according to his parents, gets around well in his electric wheelchair and “enjoys all the normal things most teenagers his age like: movies, videos games, sports” – especially the University of Oregon Ducks – “and girls.”
But now Brady faces another huge hurdle – not a medical one this time, but a financial one: His family needs to come up with money for a kidney transplant. The Children’s Organ Transplant Association (COTA), a nationwide organization that raises money for kids like Brady, has started a fund drive for him.
It estimates the transplant will cost $60,000. So far, according to the COTA website, the drive has raised barely $3,000.
The work of organizations like COTA is admirable. That they have to exist in the so-called “greatest county in the world” is a national embarrassment.
If Brady Hardin lived in “socialist” Canada, money wouldn’t be an obstacle to getting a life-prolonging and life-enhancing transplant; the country’s health care plan would cover it, as well as the expensive (around $1,500 a month) drugs that transplant recipients must take to prevent organ rejection. There’s a waiting list for transplants in Canada, but that’s because there aren’t enough replacement kidneys to go around, not because people who need them can’t pay for them.
The American way of dealing with kidney patients wastes both lives and money. A 1997 study found that the mortality rate for kidney disease was 47% higher in the US than in Canada. Canadian patients were twice as likely as Americans to receive transplants. Because American patients spent more time on dialysis and were more likely to end up needing hospital care for complications, monthly treatment costs were significantly higher than in Canada.
This stupidity is unlikely to end in Brady’s lifetime, or mine, or yours, because our paralyzed political system can’t achieve even the most rudimentary reform of health care, much less a wholesale makeover along the lines of the Canadian system.
After finding out about Brady Hardin I went to the COTA website and made a contribution. I hope you do the same. And after you do, please give some thought to how barbaric it is that kids like Brady and their parents have to beg for money from strangers to obtain what citizens of virtually every other developed nation receive as a fundamental right.
This article appears in Feb 18-24, 2010.
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bruce from what this here says;
(End-Stage Renal Disease in
the United States and Manitoba, Canada,”)
this study was done from the whole USA comparing it to one city, Manitoba, unless that was a miss print or something. but if it wasn’t then comparing one city to the whole USA , then i could see why the percentage is the way it is. I know a couple of folks on dialysis, the thing is there is no one that matches.
bruce i hope that people give generously. but look at this link for how many transplant have been done and by who. link below.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kidney_transplantation
These situations are sad and I wish Brady well. I can’t spare anything because my taxes are too high. If I thought the government would run health care efficiently and without a high degree of waste & red tape, I’d be for it. I just don’t care to have my doctor’s appointment remind me of visiting the DMV.
Just to add to the comments from mister…
Years ago, my now late wife was diabetic and needed a kidney. She was blood type A+ but as a blood type O+, I could donate to any positive blood type. We went through all of the tests and were close to an operation when complications set in for her. All of the costs of the tests were covered a program in the state of Washington through Medicade. The operation would have been covered as well even though we were both on our 30s at the time. The only thing we would need to pay for was to find accomidations in Seattle for 3 months following the operation at the University of Washington.
It is so easy to find a sad situation and turn it into a reason to expand governemnt even more. Even if the government had every penny from us, somehow, there would still be needs that could not be covered. That is because governments do not add to the GNP – they only suck off the teet of it. It is a black hole where money disappears – money that is created not by productivity, but money that is just created.
Please don’t use people like Brady to force the rest of us into bondage.
I am wondering, because I really don’t know, would Canada’s health plan have covered the life support early in Brady’s life even though the Drs thought he would be a vegetable? Also, on the positive side, Americans are (for the most part) extremely generous especially in times of crisis and hopefully in this case will once again step up and help those in need. We have a long tradition of helping our neighbors and giving and receiving help from “strangers”.
“Please don’t use people like Brady to force the rest of us into bondage.”
Oh, come on — “bondage”? Isn’t that a little over the top? Do you think Obama is going to sell you into slavery to finance health care reform?
Too many Americans are in “bondage” to the whims and greed of health insurance companies — but for some strange reason that doesn’t seem to concern conservatives at all.
Bruce.. yes to the first response to bondage and obama!!!!
second let me ask you. what people group is makeing up the biggest un insured?? and i can’t believe you would use this for your agenda for blasting America, over all, America does more here and abroad for every country then any other country, so what is your problem. good grief.
mister: Would you mind putting that into English?
i think it makes very good sense, and what part doesn’t? seems like others understand what i said.
“over all, America does more here and abroad for every country then any other country”
WTF does that mean?
WTF that means… Haiti, Indonesis, The Marshall Plan, allowing the PM of Newfoundland to come to America for his medical needs…
and why haven’t you posted or responded to a post I made yesterday… did the truth hurt?
“Haiti, Indonesis, The Marshall Plan, allowing the PM of Newfoundland to come to America for his medical needs…”
What does any of that have to do with our farked-up health care system?
“and why haven’t you posted or responded to a post I made yesterday… did the truth hurt?”
I don’t control what posts are allowed on this site — that’s somebody else’s job. If yours wasn’t posted, how the hell could I respond to it?
Bruce did you check out the link i put up, if not here it is again.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kidney_transplantation
did the chart at the bottom of that link, kinda disprove your info,
plus i am just saying that America does more good for more people everywhere in regards to medical, and food giveing. even in our own country.
why is that so hard for you to understand??
hey bruce i did find another site, and found this, what do you think. if this applies this is good news, i think.
(Since 1973, Medicare has picked up 80% of ESRD treatment costs, including the costs of transplantation for both the kidney donor and the recipient. Medicare also covers 80% of immunosuppressive medication costs for up to three years. To qualify for Medicare ESRD benefits, a patient must be insured or eligible for benefits under Social Security, or be a spouse or child of an eligible American. Private insurance and state Medicaid programs often cover the remaining 20% of treatment costs.
I was responding to your question about the comments made by Mister. You show a lot of contempt for this country and sing a love song to Canada. If Canada is so great, move there.
Just because most of us don’t blindly follow the liberal, socialist mantra that was formed on an LSD trip during the 60’s, don’t try to guilt us into Marxism.
The comments I wrote was probably not posted becaues it included a link to a webpage that compared the profit margins of insurance companies to other companies in this country. it’s at a site called lockergnome and it has ‘evil for profit health insurance companies’ in the article title.
The highest profet margin of insurance companies listed is Unitedhealth Group inc. that posted 4.14%. Walmart was at 3.31%. Exxon Mobile was 8.98%. These are the businesses that most often get villified by the left. However, Apple is at 14.97, Johnson & Johnson at 20.76%, Bristol-Myers at 26.04, Pfizer at 16.32.
The worst offender in my opinion is Microsoft at 24.93%. They are the most greedy & controlling company this world has ever seen. They don’t care that there product is unstable a suseptable to viruses allow for ID theft, etc. If they did care, they would really change it.
What does all of this have to do with our health care system? Businesses don’t want to go broke and they need to remain sustainable to operate. Government doesn’t have to care about the bottom line nor the effeciencies of thier employees. All they know is red tape and proceedures that waist time & resources. THEY DON”T HAVE TO CARE – and they will care less than evil, private insurance companies.
America isn’t perfect, but it is the greatest country this planet has ever seen. Socializng it will only lead to ruin. President Johnson declaired war on poverty on 1965. Unknown trillions of dollars have been spent on that war and we are nowhere close to winning it. The constitution has never given the government the right to take money from one class and give it to another – but they do it anyway.
The way the government has run Social Security by “borrowing” from the pension fund would land any private business owner in jail. I don’t think I will see any retirement. Medicare is going broke. Obamacare is so laced with privaliged exceptions that it is obcene. The very people writing that bill would not have to be on it. They will keep their top-class, taxed-paid insurance because they think that they are entitled the same perks as private executives are.
You know this is true, but the liberal tactics remain the same – The ends justify the means. Demonize your opponants, laugh at the tea-baggers, etc.Your ‘savior’ has failed you but you keep on walking blindly over the cliff. The dreams of Nervana by the “Olppies” (old hippies) will never come to fruition in our lifetimes. Get as angry at the truth in front of you as you want. It won’t change. You can’t whine it into reality. It’s time for you to grow up.
Space Elf: I didn’t see your comment with the link to the profit figures. I would have to check it out for myself but on the face of it those numbers look highly suspect.
For example, the Department of Health and Human Services released a report on insurance company profits just yesterday that said, in part:
“Recent economic data show that profits for the ten largest insurance companies increased 250 percent between 2000 and 2009, ten times faster than inflation. Last year, as working families struggled with rising health care costs and a recession, the five largest health insurance companies – WellPoint, United Health Group, Cigna, Aetna, and Humana – took in combined profits of $12.2 billion, up 56 percent over 2008. These health insurance companies' profits grew even as nominal GDP decreased by 1 percent over this same time period. WellPoint accumulated more than $2.7 billion in profits in the most recent quarter alone.”
The insurance companies have accountants that can make numbers jump through hoops and I’m sure they can make the profit margins appear just as tiny as they want them to appear.
As for Microsoft, its corporate misbehavior has no bearing at all on the health care debate or the behavior of insurance companies.
As for the rest of your sneering diatribe I have no comment except to say that in the 1960s I was a Goldwater Republican. Then I grew up, graduated from college, went to work in the real world and found out how full of crap conservative dogma was.
Have a nice day.
“The insurance companies have accountants that can make numbers jump through hoops and I’m sure they can make the profit margins appear just as tiny as they want them to appear.”
Yeah, because it would make a lot of sense for a corporation who must answer to shareholders to attempt to make its business appear LESS valuable than it actually is. Wanna talk about wing nuttery.
You have yet to address the issue of how poorly government runs everything it gets it’s hands on. What makes you think their track record will suddenly change if they run our health care? If they have control, they don’t have to care – like Microsoft does and AT&T did before the breakup.
And on your suggestion, I will have a nice day!
Elf: First, it’s a myth that the government botches “everything it gets its hands on.” Conservatives seem to think government does just fine at performing essential services such as defense, operating the criminal and civil justice systems, maintaining the Interstate Highway System and ensuring the safety of air travel. In the field of insurance, it’s a well-known fact that the administrative costs of Medicare are below those of private insurance companies.
As for accountability, at least government is ultimately answerable to the voters. Insurance companies are answerable to nobody but their own stockholders. Where’s their incentive to do anything but charge the biggest premiums possible and pay the stingiest benefits possible?
Clearly Mister subscribes to the notion that the inability to spell or write complete sentences is a virtue. Remember when getting an education was deemed positive? Or when actual facts mattered? But, I digress. Anyway, spot on column on health care. I visit Canada quite often and spend a lot of time with working class Canadians. We talk a lot about health care and I have never, ever met a Canadian who would trade their system for ours. I have, on the other hand, met Canadians who moved to the U.S. but quickly returned home because they couldn’t afford the cost of health care here. I also have a good friend back in Windsor, Canada, who has a great story to tell about the incredibly good care he received when he had a heart attack a few years ago. He was literally spirited to Toronto for treatment via helicopter…and back home, too. Every single country that has universal, government-sponsored health care has lower per capita costs than the U.S. Yet, those who persist in proclaiming that the US is #1 apparently think we cannot do the same. It makes no sense. But then, what do I know? As someone who actually reads, I am just another elitist, eh?