Posted on 01/20/2011 6:08:36 AM PST by Daffynition
What's wrong with Steve Jobs? Apple won't say. On Monday, the company said he was taking a medical leave—his third since 2004—but refused to disclose why. Yesterday Apple touted its market prospects in a conference call but again said nothing about its CEO's health. You can argue that Jobs' medical privacy is more important than the interests of Apple's investors. But there's another reason why he should tell us what's going on, and it's bigger than money. It's life and death.
Two years ago, Jobs gamed the transplant allocation system to get a liver that could have saved somebody else. At the time, skeptics doubted that he should have received the organ, since he'd been treated for pancreatic cancer—in fact, he may have sought the liver because of the cancer—and the likelihood of the cancer's recurrence made him a bad bet for putting the liver to best use. If his health is now failing because of the cancer, that suspicion may be vindicated.
Jobs lives in Northern California, but he got his liver in Tennessee. Why? Different parts of the country have different waiting lists, and the wait in Northern California was three times longer than the wait in Tennessee. In fact, the median wait in the Tennessee area where Jobs snagged his liver was around 15 percent of the national average. Jobs confirmed last year that this is why he went to Tennessee: "My doctors here advised me to enroll in a transplant program in Memphis, Tennessee, where the supply/demand ratio of livers is more favorable than it is in California here."* Legally, you're allowed to get on multiple waiting lists around the country. That's how you game the system.
So why doesn't everybody do this? [snip]
(Excerpt) Read more at slate.com ...
so what.
shall we publish the name of every liver transplant patient who dies within 2 years as an organ thief??
if he’s gaming the system he’s surely out of touch.
you can find livers online if you match w/the donor
Probably by being incredibly rich.
Wasn’t Slate founded by MicroSoft/NBC?
Steve Jobs ping.
Money buys good doctors and good advice. Is that a problem?
Just because he has a lot of money doesn’t mean he shouldn’t do everything he can legally do to live longer.
Maybe the liver app wasn't available yet.
Shouldn’t there be some benefit for being rich? Should he have said, “Nah, I’ll just die like everyone else.”
So what? Gad, such bottom feeding.
Best use? Who gets to make that determination? The author of this article? A panel of doctors? This edges on the Death Panel issues surrounding Obamacare. Personally, I'd still rather have an unfettered market make the decision than some bureaucrat. If you're argument is: But then the rich live and the poor die! really doesn't cut it for me. If I make a list of what the rich do (e.g., job creation, capital investing, support for charities, etc.) and compare it to the list of the things the poor do for me (e.g., ...damn, I can't think of a thing), I have a hard time voting for the poor guy.
Very reliable platform, much more reliable than any MS 7 liver.
/s>
As Mel Brooks once stated, “It’s GOOD to the the king.”
Well if its legal whats the problem? Anybody can get on multiple lists.
He “Cut and Pasted” one using his iPad....
Not enough caffeine.
It’s Good to be the King.
I’m sorry Mel, you deserve better.
every liver transplant costs a lot of money
he just happens to have enough to pay for it himself
at least he didn’t order one from China and cause a political prisoner to be executed to get it
Only if you're smart enough to ask, apparently. My husband died waiting for a liver. We had no idea that there were multiple lists one could be on.
Oh well, too late now.
I’d almost guarantee all the people who’ve stolen things from me were poor people. When you read the news and hear about rapes and murders, most of the people committing those crimes are poor.
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