Health Care should be limited to the healthy
So says some doctors in Britain, apparently:
Smokers, heavy drinkers, the obese and the elderly should be barred from receiving some operations, according to doctors, with most saying the health service cannot afford to provide free care to everyone.
The US conservative blogs are abuzz with how this proofs just how nasty socialized medicine is, and how it's the leftist egodiest's(?) fault. That second link has really missed the boat, given what else these doctors would like to stop funding for.
Fertility treatment and "social" abortions are also on the list of procedures that many doctors say should not be funded by the state.
I mean, I can't begin to list all of the left-wing groups and organizations out there campaigning for the end of funding for "social" abortions, mainly because there are none. ("Social" abortions? WTF? When the hell has abortion ever been a social exercise? "I'm going out to end my pregnancy and meet new people!" Idiots! [/rant])
Anyway, the really fun claim is that somehow the American system is better because a profit-driven private insurance industry would never act the way government of Britain isn't actually acting and deny coverage to people like those listed above.
Of course, the profit-driven, private industry health providers in the US have long since figured out that the best way to make those profits is to save as much money as possible, by providing the least amount of actual health care possible, and that one of the most effective ways to do so is to deny coverage to high-risk individuals like the very elderly, heavy smokers and drinkers, those on the heavy side, and so on. Either that, or charge them ridiculously high premiums and still deny the coverage for complications resulting from "pre-existing" conditions.
Basically, what the doctors above are advocating, and what the British government is likely to refuse to do, is to turn British health care into something that far more closely resembles the American system, which, it is always wise to point out, costs Americans far more than any single-payer system anywhere else does for provably worse overall results. Dangers of a socialized system indeed.
