Talk:Death of Nataline Sarkisyan

Removal of death details
Why has all the information related to Nataline's death been purged from the page? The timeframe surrounding the actual death is very significant towards this article. I am not familiar enough with editing to find the exact revision in which it was removed, though I believe a ton of other material was also altered in that particular edit. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.168.134.69 (talk) 20:29, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Broader context needed
I don't understand this situation at all. Pundits all over the U.S. have been declaiming that illegal immigrants get free health care because they walk in and are given treatment by doctors who feel it is unethical to withhold it. Supposedly the reason why a few minutes at the hospital can cost $1000 is that there are several patients not paying for every one that does. Yet in this article we're told that mercenary doctors put their ears back and refused to move. I'm reminded of a comment by Pliny the Elder in his Natural History: "...I shall not even attempt to denounce their avarice, the rapacious haggling while their patients' fate hangs in the balance." It is as if two thousand years of civilization (exploitable or not) have been stripped away, and I don't understand how or when.

I also don't understand why the insurance company per se is regarded as the killer here. No doubt they did the wrong thing - but how is their decision to withhold immediate payment worse than the hospital's or the doctor's decision not to provide treatment? Especially when you consider that this complication arose from the previous medical treatment, that the physicians knew it was not an experimental procedure, and that the patient's life was truly in dire peril.

I also don't understand why someplace like St. Jude's Children's Hospital was not a possible resolution. I had always imagined that they were not the only hospital in the U.S. willing to take cases regardless of ability to pay, either. Now I find myself wondering what the situation really is. And if the $1000 emergency room visits aren't going to needy patients... where is all that money going? Wnt (talk) 03:01, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

They let her die because there was a limited chance of survival (according to USA today) and the cost vs. possible success was deemed not worth it. It could be argued that in a world of limited resources we, as a people, will have to make tough decisions regarding the allocation of those resources. The company made a prudent decision based on the facts in simple. It was a calculation, we can not save everyone at any cost. At some point we must decide when a cause is lost and that it is not prudent to continue. I see no issue with the family paying the required down-payment to make this happen if they disagreed. The family of course disagrees.

NPOV Cleanup
I tried to clean this up a bit to make it a more NPOV comment and added some citations, including the CIGNA HealthCare coverage position (for balance.) Please feel free to correct or update anything that you can't find in my citations or the other listed resources. Even from the comments I have read on the news stories, there is a lot of conflicted opinions.

I did see a lot of comments asking why the physicians would not perform the surgery without an absolute guarantee of payment by CIGNA HealthCare, but could not find a reliable source to cite for this. As this topic is likely to be very heated, I definitely did not want to add anything that can't be 100% sourced. Slavlin (talk) 03:40, 27 December 2007 (UTC)


 * The page is very one sided, and falsely states that CIGNA "refused to pay" for the liver transplant when in fact CIGNA was not financial responsible. The medical facts are wrong, too.  This page is a campaign ad and violates NPOV.  http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120001235968882563.html has the facts, but isn't even cited.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.55.218.152 (talk) 13:58, 11 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Regarding the issue of the insurer of Nataline Sarkisyan, it is unclear whether she was insured through her mother or father. Furthermore, most small self-insured companies purchase separate "stop-loss" insurance. Stop-loss insurance can cover either single really large claims (as this would be), or a large number of small claims, in excess of the self-insurance pool controlled by the employer. So there are several questions: Was there a stop-loss provision in the parent's insurance? If so, who was the insurer for the stop-loss provision? 69.225.227.126 (talk) 23:07, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

CIGNA Employee Flips Off Mother Of Dead Girl Denied Transplant
This is an important addition to the story and the state of Insurance in America:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/08/cigna-employee-flips-off_n_314189.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.189.253.43 (talk) 04:33, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Removal of Content
Someone whose entire edit history consists of this page and the Cigna page has removed a significant amount of content and over half the external links (mostly ones unsympathetic to Cigna's stance on the issue) without explanation; reverting. 146.201.173.67 (talk) 20:28, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Does she meet notability criteria?
While her death & the circumstances surrounding it have gotten plenty of media attention in the past few years, will her fame last, or will it fizzle out before this decade is over? I wonder this because a former cheerleading coach named Carlie Christine Beck got media attention last year when she was fired for posing nude for Playboy, but the attention soon died out. If Carlie doesn't meet the notability criteria, Nataline might not either; what's the difference? I'm gonna add the Notability tag to the top of this page. Roxtar 20:35, 18 April 2010 (UTC)


 * This case is being cited in the medical ethics books and it will continue to be cited forever. It presented a major question on whether managed care gave people the health care they wanted, and whether cost/benefit medical decisions in this country were working. The stakes are much greater here than a cheerleading coach posing nude for Playboy.


 * Does anybody else agree with that Notability tag? If not, I'm going to remove it. --Nbauman (talk) 15:51, 26 March 2012 (UTC)


 * This article is tagged for quality standards, but nobody has explained in Talk exactly why they think it doesn't meet quality standards and how it should be cleaned up or rewritten. Unless somebody can explain what the problem is, I think the tag should be deleted. --Nbauman (talk) 16:35, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
 * I would have to say I agree with the tag. Her inclusion looks more like a mix of WP:ONEEVENT and WP:RECENTISM than actual notability. Given that she died nearly 5 years ago and that politicians tend to focus on living subjects they can put i nfront of a camera, I seriously doubt she will attain more notability beyond the passing mention once in a while. If this were in AfD, I'd have to go with delete. Niteshift36 (talk) 17:27, 26 March 2012 (UTC)


 * This case is still being referred to BY WP:RSs http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2012/mar/15/former-health-insurance-executive-questions-brownb/ probably several times a week, which meets the criteria for WP:NOTABLE. I don't know about you, but I hear about it all the time. It's a major case in health ethics, like the Terri Schiavo case or Nancy Cruzan. It's important to keep it in Wikipedia because people are going to hear references to Nataline Sarkisyan and want to know what it refers to.


 * Anyone who compares this to a coach who got fired for a nude picture in Playboy isn't making a serious argument.


 * You might make make an argument for renaming the article after the event, like Terri Schiavo case or Cruzan v. Director, Missouri Department of Health. But the event certainly is notable. --Nbauman (talk) 21:48, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
 * 1) The whole Playboy thing is a non-starter. WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS doesn't persuade. 2) Referencing a case doesn't increase her notability. I mentioned above that there will be passing mentions. A mention doesn't establish notability, nor is it evidence of it. 3) If you look at the last AfD, there wasn't much support for keeping it as a stand alone article. Even some of the support was weak and some made the case that it should be redirected. Personally, I think that's a good call. Niteshift36 (talk) 22:52, 26 March 2012 (UTC)


 * There are 77 hits for "Nataline Sarkisyan" in Google books, some of them as recent as 2011, including major books. Even if you exclude false hits, that's definitely enough to establish WP:NOTABILITY based on WP:RS in Google books alone. https://www.google.com/search?tbo=p&tbm=bks&q=%22Nataline+Sarkisyan%22&tbs=,cdr:1&num=20


 * WP:GNG "If a topic has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed to satisfy the inclusion criteria for a stand-alone article or stand-alone list."


 * I don't think there's a serious argument about whether "Nataline Sarkisyan" belongs in WP. At any rate, there's no consensus to delete it. --Nbauman (talk) 05:06, 27 March 2012 (UTC)


 * 1) We don't use hits as an indicator of notability. Mentioning her name in an article gets a hit, but doesn't indicate significant coverage. 2) Fine, she gets talked about, but what is being talked about really? Her as an individual or the Cigna case? 3) There was no consensus to delete in 2009, but consensus can chage. Further, there was no real consensus to keep it either. It was split. The item isn't in AfD, but we can put it there. You asked if anyone objected to removing the tag. I do. I've expressed reasonable doubts about it. My opinion is that merge and redirect is the best route. Niteshift36 (talk) 13:27, 27 March 2012 (UTC)


 * I'm not using number of hits, as I said, I'm using references in major, significant books, and in significant publications.


 * What do you want to merge it with? This case is complicated and enough that it deserves its own article.


 * As I said, there's an argument for renaming it "Nataline Sarkisyan case." --Nbauman (talk) 04:51, 28 March 2012 (UTC)
 * 1) You sure sound like you are counting hits, especially when you say "There are 77 hits for "Nataline Sarkisyan" in Google books, some of them as recent as 2011, including major books". It doesn't matter if she gets mentioned in a book, regardless of how "major" the book is. What counts is how significant the coverge of her is. 2) I strongly suspect that most of the discussion in those books is about the case, not about her as an individual, which leads us back to WP:ONEEVENT. 3) This could easily be redirected and made into a 2-3 paragraph section for the existing controversy section. (A section that merely mentions this case). 4)Clearly you think this matter is important. I would submit that more people would see the info while looking up Cigna than searching for this young lady by name. Thus renaming it really wouldn't be a big improvement. Niteshift36 (talk) 12:29, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

Just found out about deletion
I guess I am not too keyed into what happens on wikipedia, since I only now found out that this article had been marked for deletion.

I think this case is notable for several reasons. Certainly, in California it was a major news item, and involved the California Nurses Association campaigning against Cigna. There was also the automatic assumption of Cigna's culpability, when in fact their culpability was not obvious, illustrating the complexities of our insurance system. It was also notable as a case where there was some discussion of the heroic efforts to save this young girl, and discussion of the medical ethics of these efforts. Finally, Ms. Sarkisyan's family subsequently appeared with Presidential candidate John Edwards at his campaign rallies. National healthcare was a major plank of his platform. Hanuman (talk) 03:55, 24 July 2012 (UTC)
 * That makes her case notable, not her as an individual. Niteshift36 (talk) 12:25, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

I agree with Niteshift36 (talk) ; the case is notable as a landmark for health care and medical ethics; however, the person is not notable, and a biography about the person is not expected. 315 million people in the US, everyone has a story; it is ambiguous to have a person's biography appear as the article when it is the case that is noteworthy not the person, and nothing in the article constitutes more than the case details anyway. I see that the article was once marked for deletion, and there was only a VERY brief discussion regarding the review and split decision. I agree this should probably be reviewed again for deletion, and support at least a merge and redirect. Awolnetdiva (talk) 08:33, 22 January 2013 (UTC)