The Ventura Star did a very nice package on the absolute outrage that is Medicare funding for kidney patients.
Here’s how Medicare works. You can live on dialysis, which will tear down your health and for most people leave you too exhausted to do much of anything; Medicare will pay $71,000 a year for that, no problem. You can get a kidney transplant for about $100,000, and Medicare will pay for that, too.
For $17,000 a year, Medicare could pay for anti-rejection drugs. And it does, for the first three years after a transplant. And then for a lot of people, the organ fails because Medicare runs out and the people haven’t found other health insurance. That’s OK. Medicare will pay for another $100,000 transplant, if they can find an organ donor.
It makes sense in theory. With a new organ, you are healthy and should be able to get a job. But if you haven’t worked for the umpteen years you were on the waiting list because dialysis made you so sick, it’s a little hard to find a great job with full benefits. You can’t afford to take a low-level job with little or no benefits, because the Medicare will stop and your kidney will fail now.
I can believe that the government would limit anti-rejection meds to save money, but it’s costing taxpayers more.
My kidney daddy says he won’t let this happen to our kidney; he will think of something.
Meanwhile, there is a senator, mentioned in this part of the story package, who keeps proposing a bill that would provide lifetime coverage for anti-rejection drugs. Guess who opposes it: Big Dialysis. That’s just evil.
I’m not so political; I don’t write my congressional reps. But I’m going to write all of them and tell them my story and ask them to please ensure that my donated kidney will live on.