RIP, Nataline Sarkisyan and Screw You, Cigna

Posted by Karoli in Health, News December 21st, 2007

17-year old Nataline Sarkisyan passed away yesterday while waiting for Cigna to approve her liver transplant. Yes, you read that right. APPROVE her liver transplant. She couldn’t even get on the donor lists because they withheld approval, claiming a transplant was not proven “medically necessary”. She had had a bone marrow transplant for leukemia that caused liver damage.

Long-time readers of this blog know what hell I went through to get Sticks’ meds approved. What a minor blip on the radar that was compared to this! Jason Calacanis just twittered this:

#$k you Cigna: Nataline Sarkisyan

Here’s the heartbreaking video her sister made. My heart goes out to her family. The Mahalo page has a pretty complete lists of links regarding Nataline.

Update: Jason Calacanis is calling for 1M Bloggers to write posts entited “Screw You, Cigna”

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Viewing 6 Comments

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    What CIGNA did was unforgivable, but what about the hospital? Aren't they equally culpable? They turned away a beautiful, young, dying girl because her insurance company would not pay.

    Couldn't the doctors donate their time? Doctors donate time to operate on poor third world cases all the time!

    A liver transplant usually costs around $350,000.00 to do. Where were the Bill Gates, the Warren Buffets, Or Oprah? Mark Geragos could have paid and then kept fighting CIGNA. Couldn't one of the rich well funded Presidential candidates write out a check? Instead Nataline is now a martyr. That's good for the politicians and lawyers, but a tragedy for her and her family.

    What about us? Come on people! This was a life worth saving and this is the age of the internet! If 500,000 people would have given a dollar Nataline would be alive today.

    CIGNA can never be forgiven, but their is plenty of guilt and shame to be passed around! Collectively we let this girl die and now politicians that could have easily paid for her operation try to win campaigns using her name. It is truly disgusting!
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    I do understand the outrage, but what is the answer to prevent this from happening again? Sadly, I have a hunch that there are no easy answers.
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    Kudos for speaking up about this... The more folks that talk about this tragedy, the better. We've heard about Nat in the news, but how many other denied patients have we NOT heard about? All in the name of shareholder satisfaction. I hope Natalie's memory comes to mind when they get their $1.77 per share dividend check, and when the CEO invests his $28Million salary.
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    Hey Crook could you come up with $75,000 in short notice. That's how much it would have cost the family. When the health care insurance company that I paid $160.00 a month wanted to deny my son inhalers for his asthma. I got on the phone with them and told them that it would cost more for them if my son ended up in the emergency room due to not being able to breathe. I worked in health care and getting money from them for patient care is like pulling teeth. The best health care I ever received was when I was growing up as an Army brat. It was socialized medical and dental covered by the department of defense for my father's twenty year service to his country. Even the military personal don't get that today. Soon only the rich, Congress, The President, Vice President will have health care. Don't worry Micheal Crook you can always go to Mexico for treatment.
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    This is truly sad. And what’s sad is that people are too brainwashed to see the truth: the family caused the girl’s death by wasting time on protests, when they could have been seeking the funds needed for the procedure.

    People appear to be too blinded by emotion to see this.
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    Hey Crook,
    The family "could have been seeking the funds" for a liver transplant? Did I get that right? Is that what you're saying?
    The reason they bought and paid for medical insurance is so they wouldn't have to "seek the funds" for something like this, do you get it? By your reasoning, nobody should expect to get what they pay for, ever, anywhere. Someone buys a house, they try to move in and the previous owners demolish it - oh well, move on, huh? Don't bother trying to get your money back or an explanation - shit happens.
    You're an idiot.
    My guess is that you're some pimple-faced shut-in who can't get laid so you thought it'd be funny to mess with people's emotions at a time of tragedy. I'd like to throw your own twisted opinion back at you in the form of advice - instead of wasting time spewing your hard-nosed idiocy, you could have been seeking connections to other people which is needed for a real life. But you appear to be too blinded by hatred to see this.
 

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