This does not directly relate to the medicine, but since insurance is definitely tied to health care, can this become a legal method of penalizing the family of a man who exercised his Patients' Rights and made a valid choice regarding treatment?
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STLtoday - News - Missouri State News
Mo. high court to rule on death benefits
By Matthew Franck
POST-DISPATCH JEFFERSON CITY BUREAU
12/13/2007
Sharon Wilcut holds a flannel shirt that belonged to her now-deceased husband Floyd. She keeps the shirt hanging on her headboard seven years after his death.
(Christian Gooden/P-D)
As Floyd Wilcut lay dying in a hospital bed from a work-related truck accident, he saw a choice between survival and salvation.
TODAY'S TALK: Jehovah’s Witness refuses transfusion; should his widow get benefits?
He chose to spare his soul, refusing a blood transfusion that likely would have saved his life. And in dying, the devout Jehovah's Witness stayed true to a tenet of his faith.
In the eight years since, the courts, an insurance company, his employer and a state commission have second-guessed his decision.
Each has offered ideas of whether his choice to refuse medical care was, in legal terms, "reasonable." And each has wrestled over whether that decision disqualifies his widow from collecting death benefits for his work-related injuries.