Spare_change
Gold Member
- Jun 27, 2011
- 8,690
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When the government controls your healthcare, they control you. And when the government bites off more than it can chew, rationing, substandard care, and long wait-lists for treatment inevitably follow. This isn't a hypothetical. Under the UK's chronically under-funded and scandal-plagued NHS system, the government bureaucrats end up micromanaging family decisions and banning effective and groundbreaking new treatments on account of cost. And when things get really tight, they cook up even more draconian edicts. Tough luck, smokers and overweight Britons:
The NHS will ban patients from surgery indefinitely unless they lose weight or quit smoking, under controversial plans drawn up in Hertfordshire. The restrictions - thought to be the most extreme yet to be introduced by health services - immediately came under attack from the Royal College of Surgeons. Its vice president called for an “urgent rethink” of policies which he said were “discriminatory” and went against the fundamental principles of the NHS. In recent years, a number of areas have introduced delays for such patients - with some told operations will be put back for months, during which time they are expected to try to lose weight or stop smoking.
But the new rules, drawn up by clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) in Hertfordshire, say that obese patients “will not get non-urgent surgery until they reduce their weight” at all, unless the circumstances are exceptional. The criteria also mean smokers will only be referred for operations if they have stopped smoking for at least eight weeks, with such patients breathalysed before referral. East and North Hertfordshire CCG and Herts Valleys said the plans aimed to encourage people “to take more responsibility for their own health and wellbeing, wherever possible, freeing up limited NHS resources for priority treatment”. Both are in financial difficulty, and between them seeking to save £68m during this financial year.
British doctors are objecting to this outrageous plan. Might they go on strike to protest it? Smokers and heavy people pay taxes to fund NHS just like everyone else, but they're more of a drain on the over-burdened system, so their pain and maladies are therefore deemed less worthy of urgent treatment by Big Brother. They 'deserve' their problems. Don't like it, ingrates? Kick your habit and hit the treadmill. Quitting smoking and exercising are worthwhile ideas, of course, but it's cold-blooded coercion if the "or else" threat is...losing access to needed care -- with no recourse, mind you; the government is the ultimate authority. This is how budget-busting, patient-failing socialized healthcare operates.
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Scared you, didn't it? If it didn't, it should have. Welcome to the Single Payer System. Britain today, US in 10 years.
The NHS will ban patients from surgery indefinitely unless they lose weight or quit smoking, under controversial plans drawn up in Hertfordshire. The restrictions - thought to be the most extreme yet to be introduced by health services - immediately came under attack from the Royal College of Surgeons. Its vice president called for an “urgent rethink” of policies which he said were “discriminatory” and went against the fundamental principles of the NHS. In recent years, a number of areas have introduced delays for such patients - with some told operations will be put back for months, during which time they are expected to try to lose weight or stop smoking.
But the new rules, drawn up by clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) in Hertfordshire, say that obese patients “will not get non-urgent surgery until they reduce their weight” at all, unless the circumstances are exceptional. The criteria also mean smokers will only be referred for operations if they have stopped smoking for at least eight weeks, with such patients breathalysed before referral. East and North Hertfordshire CCG and Herts Valleys said the plans aimed to encourage people “to take more responsibility for their own health and wellbeing, wherever possible, freeing up limited NHS resources for priority treatment”. Both are in financial difficulty, and between them seeking to save £68m during this financial year.
British doctors are objecting to this outrageous plan. Might they go on strike to protest it? Smokers and heavy people pay taxes to fund NHS just like everyone else, but they're more of a drain on the over-burdened system, so their pain and maladies are therefore deemed less worthy of urgent treatment by Big Brother. They 'deserve' their problems. Don't like it, ingrates? Kick your habit and hit the treadmill. Quitting smoking and exercising are worthwhile ideas, of course, but it's cold-blooded coercion if the "or else" threat is...losing access to needed care -- with no recourse, mind you; the government is the ultimate authority. This is how budget-busting, patient-failing socialized healthcare operates.
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Scared you, didn't it? If it didn't, it should have. Welcome to the Single Payer System. Britain today, US in 10 years.
