Word Soup

I wondered when the mercilessly efficient HMO industry would start embracing euthanasia as a "cost efficient alternative" to giving a flying fuck and helping their patients fight cancer. Apparently Oregon Health Plan has made the leap:

"When Barbara Wagner's lung cancer returned, the Oregon woman was prescribed a chemotherapy drug, Tarceva, that could lengthen her life and provide comfort. Then, she was notified that the Oregon Health Plan wouldn't cover the cancer drug, but would cover palliative (comfort) care, including a doctor-assisted suicide.

“Treatment of advanced cancer that is meant to prolong life, or change the course of this disease, is not a covered benefit of the Oregon Health Plan,” said the unsigned letter Wagner received from LIPA, the Eugene company that administers the Oregon Health Plan in Lane County."

Why not take the next step, and replace empathy and effective medical care entirely with massive coin-operated ovens you simply step into at the first sign of a sniffle. I mean the goal is pure profit at any cost, so lets skip right to the fucking point, huh?