Home Culture 64-Year-Old Man Denied Life Saving Medical Care Because He’s White (Images)

64-Year-Old Man Denied Life Saving Medical Care Because He’s White (Images)

This morning we’ve received really bad news, a 64-year-old patent with asthma who recently recovered from prostate cancer was denied treatment with monoclonal antibodies because he is white.

This is what the person said on Twitter:

My (vaxxed) dad has covid. He’s 64, has asthma and recently recovered from prostate cancer. His doctor prescribed monoclonal antibodies two days ago but it has to be approved by some kind of committee and nobody is returning my mother’s calls. This is why so many people are dying

Then posted updates of the situation:

People urged this person to call her state representative:

To be fair, I’ll point out that the healthcare worker who treated her father doesn’t make the rules. I the roles reversed, there’s no scientific justification that would stop the media from portraying the story 24/7 as an example of “white privilege” and “systemic racism.” In reality, though, there appears no scientific justification for this race-based policy.

The US Supreme Court uses a demanding legal standard in reviewing race-based classifications. There is no direct precedent in which courts have considered race in allocating scarce health care resources. The closest parallels are found in rulings on school access and university admissions. The critical question is whether government is permitted to consider race when seeking to ameliorate the effects of past and current discrimination. Often called “reverse discrimination,” the policy deliberately favors people of color.

In a series of cases, the court has vacillated as to whether race can be an express criterion for achieving greater equity and diversity. In striking down public school integration plans that explicitly included a student’s race, Chief Justice Roberts said, “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race” (Parents Involved in Community Schools v Seattle School District No. 1, 551 US 701 [2007]). Yet the court has permitted race to be one of multiple factors in ensuring diversity in universities.7

The court has increasingly moved toward limiting the explicit consideration of race, requiring policies categorizing individuals by race to meet a “strict scrutiny” standard. Under strict scrutiny, race-based policies must be narrowly tailored to achieve a compelling governmental interest. Even if the court were to rule that promoting equity is a compelling state interest, it would still require government, wherever possible, to use means other than race to achieve equitable outcomes. Likewise, the future of race-based discrimination to remedy past and future disadvantage remains uncertain.

(This post may contain disputed claims. We make no assertions as to the validity of the information presented by our Opinion Columnist. This is an opinion article, and this post should be treated as such. Enjoy.)