If you're not the picture of perfect health and fitness, you'd better think twice about supporting a move toward nationalized health care.
Take it from the British who have a National Health Service, if you're out of shape or do things they consider "unhealthy," they might just cut you off and let you die to save money.
From the UK Telegraph:
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.
Fertility treatment and "social" abortions are also on the list of procedures that many doctors say should not be funded by the state.
Ug! What a quandary for liberals! Socialized medicine and abortion, incompatible? Unthinkable!
But it's not just something theoretical. It's already happening in Britain:
About one in 10 hospitals already deny some surgery to obese patients and smokers, with restrictions most common in hospitals battling debt.
It would be unconscionable for something like this to happen in a free market system where everyone is responsible for their own health care, and for paying for it.
But in a socialized environment where the government is the Great Provider, the budget must be a consideration, especially when the citizens are already being taxed until their eyes bug out. It only makes sense that some cold, hard fiscal considerations have to kick in.
There are already many compelling reasons why socialized medicine is bad, especially in a free society. This one illustrates there really is no such thing as "government compassion," only the illusion of it, as long as the money lasts.
Just chalk this up as one more to add to the list of reason America doesn't need to go this way.
Technorati tags: health care, socialized medicine
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