The Case for Socialized Medicine in the United States, and the Struggle to Achieve It (tags)
The California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee blasted insurance giant CIGNA for failing to approve a liver transplant one week earlier for 17-year-old Nataline Sarkisyan, who tragically died just hours after CIGNA relented and agreed to the procedure following a massive national outcry. “CNA/NNOC Executive Director Rose Ann DeMoro called the final outcome ‘a horrific tragedy that demonstrates what is so fundamentally wrong with our health care system today. Insurance companies have a stranglehold on our health. Their first priority is to make profits for their shareholders – and the way they do that is by denying care." "It is simply not possible to organize major protests every time a multi-billion corporation like CIGNA denies care that has been recommended by a physician," DeMoro said. “Having insurance is not the same as receiving needed care. We need a fundamental change in our healthcare system that takes control away from the insurance giants and places it where it belongs – in the hands of the medical professionals, the patients, and their families."