DEATH PANELS IN AMERICA

To see how death panels work you just need the right combination;



A person with a deadly and expensive to treat illness.



A person of "color" (not white).



A hospital in a state (Texas) with the worse healthcare in the nation.

Liberian’s Last Days in Dallas With Ebola Come Into Focus

DALLAS—On the night of Sept. 25, a Liberian immigrant walked into the emergency room at a modern metropolitan hospital here, whose polished terrazzo floors and sleek tropical-fish tank were a world removed from the rundown clinics of his home country.

Barely a week before, Thomas Eric Duncan had excitedly arrived in Texas from Liberia’s Ebola-ravaged capital of Monrovia, with plans to reunite with his fiancée, Louise Troh, and their college-age son, Karsiah. Now his abdomen was hurting, and so was his head. He felt feverish, he told relatives.

So Ms. Troh took him to the ER at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas, and asked for assistance. Eventually, a nurse asked Mr. Duncan what ailed him. When questioned if he had been around anyone who was ill, Mr. Duncan replied that he hadn’t, according to the hospital. (More: Texas Health-Care Worker Tests Positive for Ebola, Says Health Department)

Medical staff requested Mr. Duncan provide proof of health insurance, a Social Security number and a driver’s license, and Ms. Troh responded in her thickly accented English that he had none of those things, that he was from Africa, according to a relative who spoke with her afterward. He was sent home that evening with a prescription for $40 in antibiotics, she said.
Thirteen days later, Mr. Duncan was dead, the first person diagnosed with Ebola in the U.S., and the first known casualty from the disease in this country, a case that has triggered tough questions about whether America is fully prepared for the potential spread of a West African outbreak that has killed more than 4,000 people, according to the World Health Organization.