From John Edwards’ speech in New Hampshire last night:

Just this past week, I spent time with the family of Nataline Sarkisyan. Nataline is a 17-year-old girl who, just a few weeks ago, desperately needed a liver transplant. Her parents had health insurance with one of the biggest insurance companies in America. They asked for the insurance company to pay for her liver transplant operation, and they rejected them. Then, the doctors came to her aid. They spoke up on her behalf. The nurses spoke up on her behalf. And then the insurance company said no again. Finally, the family stood up and fought. They started to march and picket, along with many other Americans, in front of the offices of this insurance company. And the insurance company finally gave in, but it was too late. And a few hours later, Nataline lost her life.

Listen, this is a tragic case. Anytime a child dies, however it happens, it is the most horrible thing imaginable. But before the Edwards version of events that the health insurance company, Cigna, had a hand in Nataline’s death becomes settled law, there are some important questions that need to be answered. This article in Forbes does the best job yet of giving the other side of the story. An excerpt:

The mysterious part of the narrative is whether a liver was truly ready to be transplanted. If there was a liver, why was it held up? It’s not enough for the insurer to deny coverage. The doctors and the hospital–especially a nonprofit institution like UCLA–must decline to work for free.
“There have been occasions where UCLA has performed a transplant without compensation,” says Roxanne Moster, a spokeswoman for the hospital. She says, cryptically: “The physicians at UCLA Medical Center base decisions on the medical condition of the patient.” She also mentions that money is an issue with transplant patients because even if UCLA pays for the procedure, there is a lifetime of expensive aftercare.
A spokesman for Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, where Sarkisyan’s oncologist works, declined to comment.
That leaves a few possible interpretations: 1. There was never a liver. 2. There was one but the doctors were reluctant to transplant it without Cigna’s payment. 3. The doctors would have eventually done the transplant without payment, but in the meantime, the patient died. 4. The family did not want the transplant to go forward unless Cigna paid for it.

And this article from the LA Times does a decent job in raising just how complicated the decision actually was. An excerpt:

Dr. John Roberts, chief of the transplant service at UC San Francisco, said Cigna faced a difficult decision in the case, based on the facts presented by the UCLA team.
Roberts said his center generally will not accept a patient without a 50% chance of living five years. According to UCLA’s letter to Cigna, patients like Nataline had a 65% chance of living six months.
“The problem that they got into is, here’s a situation where she didn’t have very long to live,” he said. “Probably in this situation, they’re probably better off to say, ‘The transplant center really feels like this is the right thing to do, let them go ahead.’ “
The standard of care for this particular situation is “going to be pretty hard to know,” Roberts added. “I think it’s a very difficult decision for both the transplant center and the insurance company.”