Oh, Oh, Oregon!

[Welcome Industry Radar readers!]

About a month ago, we reported that Oregon's state-run "health" plan made Barbara Wagner "an offer she couldn't refuse:"

"State officials have offered a lung cancer patient the option of having the Oregon Health Plan, set up in 1994 to ration health care, pay for an assisted suicide but not for the chemotherapy prescribed by her physician."

Turns out, it was considered more cost effective for her to, um, "go away" than to pay for life-extending meds.

And now the compassionate bureaucrats in the Beaver State have apparently decided to make that wonderful option more readily, and easily, available to even more desperately ill citizens:

"Since the spread of his prostate cancer, 53-year-old Randy Stroup of Dexter, Ore., has been in a fight for his life. Uninsured and unable to pay for expensive chemotherapy, he applied to Oregon's state-run health plan for help.

Lane Individual Practice Association (LIPA), which administers the Oregon Health Plan in Lane County, responded to Stroup's request with a letter saying the state would not cover Stroup's pricey treatment, but would pay for the cost of physician-assisted suicide."

Sound familiar?

The "health" plan won't pay for treatment, but has no trouble coming up with the funds for doctor-assisited "suicide." Of course, this makes perfect sense, when one considers that "state officials reported a new emphasis on preventive care and cost effectiveness." What could possibly be more effective than euthanasia? It's guaranteed to provide a complete and permanent resolution to the problem, without all that expensive medicine and stuff.

Who knew Dr Jack would be in-network?