Death by Budget Cuts: Arizona Governor Slashes Funding for Transplant Program

For transplant patients in Arizona, the warnings about death panels and health care rationing have come true, but they have nothing to do with health care reform. Instead, a Republican Governor and her allies are standing in the way of patient care, declining requests to reinstate funding for a critical, life-saving program.

Facing state budget problems, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer slashed funding for the state's Medicaid program that covered organ transplants. As a result some patients that were covered by the state and waiting for a transplant were cut from the program effective October 1st, leading to what some doctors are calling "death by budget cuts."

The impact on patients has been swift and dramatic. The Tuscon Sentinel profiles Randy Shepherd, a 36-year-old father of three, that has been living with a pacemaker for the past three years and was moving on to his last treatment option, a heart transplant. Shepherd had rheumatic fever as a child and the disease damaged his heart. Unable to get coverage because of the pre-existing condition (with health care reform, denials of this type will not be allowed), he went on Medicaid.

But while he was waiting for the heart transplant, Brewer cut funding for certain transplants under Arizona's Medicaid program, the Health Care Cost Containment System.  His heart transplant would no longer be covered.

Other patients include Tiffany Tate, a twenty-seven-year-old woman that has had cystic fibrosis since she was two and now needs a lung transplant. But she didn't get the transplant before October and now there is no money available for her to get the procedure.

On Tuesday, lawmakers, health-care professionals and patients and their families held a press conference urging Brewer to restore funding for the program. Democratic legislators are calling on Brewer to hold a special session to find funding for the program or to use discretionary federal stimulus funds to cover the gap in funding for certain transplant procedures.

"This 'Brewercare' has set up real death panels here in Arizona and it is outrageous and disgusting," Arizona Democratic state Representative Anna Tovar told the Associated Press.

But Brewer has said that she will not call a special session, stating that the state "can only provide so many optional kinds of care."

The cuts went into effect October 1st, putting a chilling due-date on potential procedures. The New York Times reports on Mark Price, who had leukemia and was up for a bone marrow transplant. His doctor found him a match, but it was on the day the cuts went into effect, so he no longer qualified. Amazingly, an anonymous donor offered to cover the hundreds of thousands of dollars for the surgery, but it was too late. His cancer came back before the operation could be done and he soon passed away.

The $1.4 million cut has had a dramatic impact on the lives of the patients and their families, but it could've been avoided. According to the Sentinel, projects that were funded include a $20 million renovation to a roof of the Arizone Veterans Memorial Coliseum and a $2 million grant for algae research.

Budget cuts have to come from somewhere, but cutting funding from a program that is integral in saving lives and preventing death? Tell Governor Brewer that her cuts to the transplant program were unconscionable and that she should immediately reinstate the $1.4 million in funding.

Photo credit: the Italian voice