I wouldn’t disagree with that, either. Although, for the amount those companies making those agents propose to profit from them, they could easily shift the programs AND all the prospective patients to any university medical system in ANY country which doesn’t happen to be shut down right now.
Oh…wait. They want to make money HERE. On sick American kids. Fo future FDA-approved profits. My bad.
Snig - I don’t know you specialty and training, but I’ve spent time in one of those large ‘Centers of Excellence’ cancer centers the feds fund. I have NEVER in my life seen the kind of screw-ups and continual back-logging, error, and misinformation I saw there. Not even in a grossly over-worked County hospital.
And I have never before encountered the unbridled private fund-whoring I saw there, either. Seriously - the funding invites and such arrive before a bill ever touches the mailbox. And then, the billings, re-billings, and insanity begin. They MAY accept a lesser amount than originally billed from the insurer - but the patient is given no quarter whatsoever, even if their share was to have been a percentage of what the insurer actually paid.
If this is what ‘excellence’ looks like to the federal government, ObamaCare was doomed before it was ever even proposed.
But what really ripped wth me, was the day I saw dozens and dozens of patients back up awaiting necessary cancer care because Mitt Romney’s wife had decided to use the hospital’s auditorium to stump for political power. Looking at it now, it reminds me of the Twin Peaks finale. Just twisted and perverse beyond all imagination. And these would ordinarily be the type of place these children would be consigned to?
But - you get that I am disgusted with BOTH sides of this thing, and these are the same people were perfectly happy to fund all that ‘excellence’ long before this latest argument, and pat themselves on the back for it as well. I honestly would have feared for those kids with, or without, this shutdown. They’re children! They aren’t exposing themselves to these unknown chemical concoctions because THEY wish to benefit future patients. They’re kids. They can’t even sign their own consent forms. Their parent are doing it TO them, rather than face what appears to be inevitable loss. It’s not that I don’t feel for them, as well. I do, absolutely. I wish none of them were caught in this awful situation. But I’m just damned if I’m gonna fall apart because others have seen fit to also use these children as guilt-trip material, when I know this isn’t really about ‘saving’ those poor kids anyway.
I wish to God it was different - but this shut-down isn’t likely to kill any of those kids. Lest we forget, Obama’s own budget games had already led to some doctors not being able to afford to treat their regular chemo patients. There don’t appear to be ANY good guys in this political face-off.
