The Political Rhetoric of Healthcare

Teenager Nataline Sarkisyan had been fighting leukemia for three years. She received a bone marrow transplant from her brother on November 22, 2007, but her liver failed and she slipped into a coma. UCLA doctors proposed a liver transplant, but Cigna rejected the procedure. Almost a month later, Cigna reversed its decision and approved the transplant; Ms. Sarkisyan died the same day.

Those are the facts—in short—of the case. But facts themselves don’t always translate effectively to the political stage. So the story that Edwards told in the New Hampshire Democratic debate Saturday night and the one echoed by Nataline’s father, Grigor Sarkisyan, (albeit understandably) at a rally on Sunday cast this sad narrative with an easily identifiable villain.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Edwards said, ”Nataline lost her life a couple of weeks ago because her insurance company would not pay for a liver-transplant operation."

The young woman’s father, obviously speaking through his pain and anger, said he had wanted to buy his daughter a car, but instead bought a casket. “Cigna–,” he said, “They killed my daughter.”

Both men, unfortunately, are wrong. An insurance company did not kill Nataline Sarkisyan. Leukemia killed Natalie. When doctors recommended the liver transplant, they did so with the caveat that the procedure would typically give patients like Nataline a 65 percent chance to live another six months.

The national debate over healthcare is an emotionally-charged issue. And the rhetoric that surrounds that debate is rarely going to be entirely lucid. But anecdotes of family tragedies like these underscore the volatile mix of economics and medical care that is only further amplified once some percentage of accounts become delinquent.

Imagine if a hospital or collection agency—as is true in many instances—would have had to attempt to collect an unpaid balance from the Sarkisyan family. “Care,” whether being provided by a hospital, used in communications by an insurer or a collection agency, or spun by a politician in his campaign discourse must be employed by all parties who seek to solve America’s healthcare predicament.

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