G. Frink's

She was seventeen years old and to Cigna, a ledger entry, as are we all to our health insurance companies. Those of us who have health insurance.

Nataline Sarkisyan passed away Thursday (Dec. 20, 2007) after being made to wait too long for for Cigna to approve a liver transplant.

In keeping with the actual nature of the event, the family is pressing criminal charges.

Cigna approved Nataline's transplant several hours before she died as "California nurses, family of the patient, and others gathered Thursday outside Cigna's Glendale, Calif., office to demand that the company reverse" its earlier denial.

Karoli, aka DrumsNWhistles, observed that Cigna's profits were substantially higher for the third quarter.

Cunning of them, wasn't it, to give approval when they might grab a little credit without having to spend a dime?

Update: The California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee addressed one of the basic issues in this case on Friday. CNA/NNOC Executive Director Rose Ann 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.

Update II: Associated Press and other reports late Friday night do in fact indicate that Nataline's case was borderline.

Cigna may in fact have been right. Denial of transplant benefits may have been well-justified. Others who share my dark view of private American health care providers, have explored this in considerable detail.