[Wash Times] A Nevada physician says insurance companies in states where assisted suicide is legal have refused to cover expensive, life-saving treatments for his patients, but offered to help them end their lives instead.Brian Callister, associate professor of medicine at the University of Nevada, said he tried to transfer two patients to California and Oregon for procedures not performed at his hospital. In phone calls with representatives from two different insurance companies, he said those requests were denied.
"And in both cases, the insurance medical director said to me, ’Brian, we’re not going to cover that procedure or the transfer, but would you consider assisted suicide?’ " Mr. Callister told The Washington Times.
The phone calls took place last year within the span of a month, Mr. Callister said. He said he did nothing to prompt the suggestion in either case.
The patients were not terminal, but "would have become terminal without the procedures."
"It was estimated that their chance for cure -- cure, not just adding time -- of about 50 percent in one case and 70 percent in the other case," Mr. Callister said.