If health care is a right, as the Democrat Socialists insists, then how come people who smoke or are overweight can be refused health care under a single payer system? Because, that’s what’s happening in the paragon of socialized medicine.
Obese people will be routinely refused operations across the NHS, health service bosses have warned, after one authority said it would limit procedures on an unprecedented scale.
Whoa. Britain’s NHS is into fat-shaming. They equate fat people with the worst of all pariahs….smokers! /sarc
Logically, this is where socialism must always end. With severe rationing.
By the way: They use a Body Mass Index calculation which mis-labels muscular, fit people as “overweight”. I get the feeling that British government bureaucrats really want a society of tired, unattractive weaklings.
“The decision… led to warnings that other trusts will soon be forced to follow suit and rationing will become the norm if the current funding crisis continues.”
“Socialist governments… always run out of other people’s money.” –Margaret Thatcher
Actually, that’s what shit comes down to in the socialist paradises all over the world when they finally figure out that it’s lazy people who are screwing freebie programs up.
Healthcare premiums would be cheaper if people lost weight and quit smoking… and those who don’t apply natural methods to curb their man-made illnesses, they ought to pay a special extra premium. Or in the case of free-healthcare governments, lose their right to be cared for, as a result.
And yeah, most low-income households have really shitty diet and exercise regimens, and it’s got nothing to do with minority oppression. No amount of public schooling and welfare/foodstamps/free housing has fixed that either. But the same can be said for the millions of seniors on Medicare, too. Hell, nearly the entire USA is completely fat-ass. And if they ain’t smoking cigarettes, they’re smoking pot. Yeah, yeah, pot doesn’t do anything. You’ve never heard pot smokers coughing their brains out, eh?
So, do as you please, patients. But then pay YOUR fair share. I can’t believe people in the Western World have such zero friggen clue.
Crowder explains why there is no right to health care: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlnzIHmI0fE
To be precise: There a right to PURSUE it – to live the healthiest life you can, to seek and receive health care that you’re able to pay for, etc. But there is no right to force others into giving you care, which is slavery.
Yep, its rationing all right. Just be aware that the US spends two and a quarter times as much on healthcare per average person as the UK does. If the UK spent more on healthcare, they would not be needing to do this kind of rationing. Different countries have different priorities…
Well, if they’re going to bar overweight people and smokers then why stop there?
If they really want to save money, deny care to people who engage in risky sex, heavy drinking, poor driving skills? Why not bar care to people taking illicit drugs? And why not bar people that engage in risky hobbies (parachuting, bungee jumping, parasailing…)?
There’s the idea that people with multiple drug overdoses would be denied ambulance service. I’d add to that gang-bangers with multiple trips to the ER for gunshot injuries sustained in gang wars.
We could also rate people by lifestyle. Why deny care to a fat guy that has a good job and pays taxes while preferring a skinny guy on permanent job-seekers allowance that spends his days playing video games and the nights drinking and whoring?
Perhaps the Brits could stop importing populations that rely heavily on the dole and marry close relatives (yielding high rates of babies with odd genetic abnormalities that will require lifetime care).
We can really cut back if we want to.
@4 – Jeff, of course you’re right but that won’t happen in this day and time.
There is zero connection between the cost of care and the care itself.
As I think I mentioned a couple of weeks back, I got to spend 28 hours in the hospital to receive a stent in a coronary artery. Fortunately, I was treated before the vessel completely blocked and suffered no damage to heart muscle. I was pleased with my care but the bill is straight from la-la land.
For my 28 hours in hospital, the bill was about $90K. Of the $90K, $14,000 was “pharmacy”. I’ll be damned if I can fathom how I ran up a $14K pharmacy bill. I’m glad I declined the aspirin in the ER (I’d had one earlier) otherwise we’d have topped $15K.
Physician charges were separate but, IMHO, reasonable.
Of course, my insurance company waved a wand and about $60,000 disappeared. Given the horrors of people buying insurance on the exchanges, I feel fortunate to only have a $3K deductible.
The point here is that there is no way for individuals to shop for care since it’s impossible to know what something really costs (and, in my case, I had no plans to call round asking for a price for angioplasty and how much a stent cost, installed).
I think there needs to be a public system with some level of basic care. Past that, people should be free to purchase more care and/or insurance on their own dime. I also know that will not work in practice since it’s nearly impossible to set a base level of care without pissing someone off. As there are lots of people that think not paying for birth control pills are the same as condemning women to death, the stickier issues have no resolution.
We’d end up with death panels and it would be no time at all before one’s political affiliation was part of the thumbs-up/down equation.
A problem without resolution. The British NHS can’t control costs and I’ve read that most Canadian provinces, on current trends, are close to spending more on healthcare than all other spending, combined.
“Rights” are derived from “Natural Rights.” Montesquieu wrote: “In the state of nature, indeed, all men are born equal; but they cannot continue in this equality. Society makes them lose it, and they recover it only by the protection of the laws.” Jefferson wrote: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with inherent and inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” (The “pursuit of happiness” being a substitution for John Locke’s “property.”) The discussion of Natural Rights is a history in itself.
A “Conditional” right is no right at all. Such a concept is formalized discrimination.
@8: has someone been reading Rediscovering Americanism ?
“pursuit of happiness” is a right. “Happiness” is not.
Progressives don’t get the distinction because one requires effort and personal responsibility.
I have a feeling that despite the “grave funding crisis,” NHS will not be laying off a single ‘Diversity Coordinator’ or ‘Muslim Community Outreach Director.’
@9: I haven’t read it yet. Levin gets his research in order, so I imagine that he understands the source stream of our governing principles as well as anyone.