Couple seeking health insurance
23 01 08 - 11:28
Man died, unable to get on waiting list for liver, parents testified.
By KEVIN LANDRIGAN Telegraph Staff
klandrigan@nashuatelegraph.com
CONCORD – Roland and Bonnie Currier, of Middleton, said New Hampshire should become the nation's first state to make a patient without health insurance equally likely to get an organ transplant.
Nicholas Currier, 21, died Jan. 20 in a Boston hospital that his parents said refused to place him on the list for a liver transplant because he had no health coverage.
"From the first moment we were there, it was, 'Where is your insurance?' They were harassing us from beginning to end, and it's just not right you can get treated that way,'' Roland Currier told a Senate committee Tuesday.
The bill's sponsor, Sen. Joseph Kenney, R-Wakefield, said he's outraged that some hospitals require insurance before marking someone, who needs an organ to live, onto a transplant list.
"I just couldn't believe what I was hearing,'' Kenney, a likely GOP candidate for governor this fall, said. "It's rich versus poor, and that's not the way our society should respond to people who need an organ to survive.''
Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center is the only New Hampshire hospital that performs transplants. It doesn't do liver transplants but performs surgeries to replace kidneys and bone marrow.
Gina Balkus, a lobbyist with DHMC, said the Lebanon-based hospital puts all patients into the transplant pipeline and only asks about insurance later.
"We certainly understand the sentiment behind this bill but feel it's unnecessary,'' Balkus said.
The measure (SB 345) would be the first in state history to mandate a medical procedure regardless of insurance coverage.
"That's quite a precedent to set,'' Balkus added.
But during an interview, the Curriers vowed to keep fighting for the bill.
"I just don't want to see another parent go through what we experienced,'' Roland Currier said.
Sen. David Gottesman, D-Nashua, said the second portion of the bill, allowing patients without insurance to donate organs, isn't needed.
"Organ donation is not an issue of whether you have insurance or not. They all can donate,'' Gottesman stressed.
Officials with the New England Organ Donor Bank confirmed that they finance the cost of most organ donations so private insurance is not required.
The Curriers have learned their other son, Christopher, 20, had Wilson's disease, the same condition that caused Nicholas' liver to fail.
Having caught this case early enough, Mrs. Currier said Christopher receives lifetime drug treatments that keep the condition under control.
Kevin Landrigan can be reached at 224-8804 or klandrigan@ nashuatelegraph.com.