The Waiting Is The Hardest Part

Dear Indigna,

Should Kaiser be put out of business for yanking all its kidney transplant patients from their high-quality programs at renowned hospitals and forcing them to languish untreated in a single, inexperienced Kaiser-run kidney program with double the death rate of other hospitals? I understand they even “denied transplants of ideally matched kidneys.” You know, now that I think about it, I think everyone involved in these actions should be forced to donate both of their own kidneys to these patients as recompense.

Furious
San Francisco, CA

Dear Furious,

Why? I mean, in the immortal words of Don Corleone, “it’s just business.” We’ve all been having to tighten our purse strings lately. Kaiser is just trying to improve the bottom line. The “waiting list” for kidneys simply wasn’t long enough when patients were distributed among programs that actually had the capacity and expertise to do the transplants. By cramming all the patients into one untested and unprepared program Kaiser increased its waiting list to at least 2,000 overnight. Obviously, it is far more economical to make kidney patients wait indefinitely than to actually perform a transplant, if you see what I mean. I wouldn’t be surprised if we see many more so-called managed “healthcare” providers rolling out this type of “transplant” program.