Sarkis Yan, a 17 year old teen, was denied a kidney transplant by her insurance carrier stating it was “an experimental procedure.” The insurance company changed its mind at the eleventh hour, but it was too late and the teen died.

Ok, this is really bunk and I don’t want anyone to think that I think she deserved to die, or that the insurance company is right. Just saying that up front.

But they’re suing for MURDER! Like with forethought and foresight.

I think Cigna is screwed because they changed their mind at the last minute, if they hadn’t changed from no to yes…it was like they were admitting fault.

But here’s my real problem with this. She didn’t have insurance…so…someone couldn’t have billed the family? Sure it would be a gajillion dollars, whatever. Didn't the hospital, the doctors, or someone (anyone??) think “hey, let’s set up a fund” or “hey, let’s get some donations”

Oh, CNN just informed me (the volume is up again…my husband can be sneaky…) a necessary bone marrow transplant approved by the insurance company caused (via complications) the liver transplant necessity. Wow, this girl was a mess, poor thing.

My bottom line: The reason that Cigna changed from denying the procedure to deciding to cover it was all this outrage from people. It was news channels covering the issue. It was a huge social backlash.

But that huge social backlash all pointed to Cigna. If, of the 5 million (or however many) people that saw the story, one-fifth had ponied up a dollar, she could have gotten the surgery and paid for her recovery time as well.

Maybe as a society instead of pointing our fingers at big, nameless corporations that make such easy scapegoats, we should pull out a dollar bill and help a fellow human out. I’d have donated a dollar. Hell, I’d donate a dollar to almost anything.

Now if I could get 999,999 like-minded people I could help save a lot of lives.