treatment to be withheld
The logical consequence of socialized medicine.
Doctors are calling for NHS treatment to be withheld from patients who are too old or who lead unhealthy lives.
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.…
One in three said that elderly patients should not be given free treatment if it were unlikely to do them good for long. Half thought that smokers should be denied a heart bypass, while a quarter believed that the obese should be denied hip replacements.
Nice to have the government deciding your treatment options for you, no? This problem is inescapable. Why? Because nothing is ‘free’, especially not healthcare. Healthcare, which is finite, has to be somehow rationed. One has largely two options here:
1) Let government bureacrats decide who gets what.
2) Allow prices and markets to work.
Which one do you think is more democratic?
Sidenote: I didn’t even go into what is considered ‘unhealthy’ and ‘healthy’ and by whom.
