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Transplant Surgeon Called Dibs On Steve Jobs' Home
theodp writes "The Commercial Appeal reports that Dr. James Eason, the surgeon who performed Steve Jobs' liver transplant, found himself grilled at length Monday by Shelby County Commission members. The Univ. of Tennessee-Methodist Transplant Institute, which Eason heads, is in a bitter dispute over the distribution of human organs. Pressed for details by Commissioners West Bunker and Terry Roland about the 2009 liver transplant that Eason performed on the late Steve Jobs, Eason acknowledged that he's now living in the Memphis home that Jobs used during his convalescence. Bunker asked, "Was that a deal cut to get him a transplant here locally?" Eason: "I understand. It's a fair question. Absolutely not." Eason said a company lined up the housing for Jobs. "I took care of him and visited him in that home. And when I learned that it was going to be going on the market, I asked him, I asked the administrator of the LLC, if I could purchase it." So, is it time for Apple to shed some light on The Mystery of Steve Jobs' Memphis Mansion? It was reported that Apple lawyer George Riley, reportedly a friend of Eason's, helped Jobs with the arrangements for the Memphis mansion, which was acquired at a bargain price of $850,000 from the State of Tennessee by the mysterious LCHG, LLC on 3/26/2009. LCHG was formed on 3/17/2009, apparently just days before Jobs received his liver (on 3/21/2010, Jobs noted he was coming up on the 1-year anniversary of his transplant). Records show that title to the mansion was transferred to Eason in May, 2011, about three months after the National Enquirer painted a grim picture of Jobs' health. LCHG, LLC was dissolved in February 2012."
Badly written article. I have no idea what it means.
work in progress
Ok, so. It's a gossip piece, but it belongs on Slashdot's homepage because it involves Steve Jobs in a semi-tangential sort of way? Right, OK.
It is extremely common for people who happen to know another person to be cut a nice deal when selling property. In fact, I might even say that is normal. Jobs knew a guy, guy wanted to buy his house, Jobs sold it to him, end of story NO ONE GIVES A SHIT.
I'm not even sure what the summary is implying, and I really don't feel it is worth taking the time to find out. This isn't even "news", it's just sensationalistic crap (I'm assuming, I only skimmed the summary).
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
This is the type of stuff that always happens when there is a prohibition on something. It makes the gatekeepers so powerful that people will use whatever means necessary to influence them.
Acknowledging that people own their bodies would allow them to sell parts of their bodies. Those that can be harvested while they are alive like bone marrow, kidneys, parts of the liver, would be pretty straight forward. Those that are harvested after death might involve getting a deal on life insurance if you transfer ownership of your organs to the insurance company after death, or you could will them to a family member.
This would make organs so readily available that no black market would exist.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
That's pretty much how the world works.
And that is the way the world should work. People should be able to use money to buy things they want, encouraging more people to supply them. The problem here is that we have decided this shouldn't apply to organs, so the supply is severely restricted. If organs were treated like a normal commodity they would be far more plentiful because way more people would be donors. I have the donor dot on my drivers license, and was paid exactly $0 to volunteer.
Another problem is motorcycle helmet laws. By preventing lethal head injuries on otherwise young healthy individuals, we are removing a great source of organs. Maybe anyone who has volunteered to be a donor should be allowed to ride without a helmet.
Isn't it interesting that Jobs, a California resident, was able to get a transplant in Tennessee? Bypassing all those sick little children and other in that state who were on the list before him, btw.
The whole thing disgusted me almost as much as the fact that David Crosby was bumped up the list for his liver transplant to just go back to his ways again.
And in the meantime, there these poor kids who just got dealt a bad deal going without because they're not rich and shameless.
fat lot of good it did him.
You begin to understand the problem, you just need to look a little bit further.
The system prioritizes those who could most benefit medically. That is, if you are likely to die even with the transplant, then you should be behind the person who might have a 80% chance of 20 or 30 more years of life with that same organ. If Jobs "greased the skids" to get himself to the head of the list even though he was likely to die with the transplant, then there are some serious questions to be answered.
Clearly the commissioners believe there is enough suspicion to investigate this more closely. It has the appearance of corruption on the part of the doctor and of Jobs.
There's a much bigger loophole that he exploited to get his transplant that's not even being discussed. Why are we even discussing Tennessee? Jobs lived in California. He was only on the list in Tennessee because he could afford to establish a residence in every state with a list that he wanted his name on and because he had access to a private jet to get him anywhere in the country on a moment's notice. The rest of us would be stuck waiting for a local organ to become available. If we want to ferret out corruption, why are we focusing on one doctor? Why not focus on the systematic flaws that allow the wealthy to get preferential treatment. A fairly simple law that would only allow someone to put their name on the list in only one state would make things more fair for everyone.
Since when is American health care system about "fair"? If you really wanted that, you'd have public healthcare long ago.