UK's NHS Watch

[redrumloa]

Healthcare ‘For All?’ UK’s NHS to Deny Surgery to Smokers, Obese

If you’re British, blob-shaped, and a feminist who spends your time dragging away on fags (cigarettes, you wimp) you can no longer receive surgery on the government’s buck. The NHS has decided to refuse service to fat smokers who need to to be cut open (see Thanks Single Payer! NHS Surgery Waiting List at Highest Level in Years… and Another Single-Payer ‘Success.’ UK Patients Dying Alone Because of Shortages…).

Thanks, socialism:

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.

So actual doctors take issue with NHS’s directive. Noted.

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.
The restrictions mean those with a Body Mass Index of 30 or more will be set targets to reduce their weight by 10 per cent over nine months, with those with a BMI over 40 will be told to cut their weight by 15 per cent.

Coming soon to the US if Obamacare is not repealed.

 

[JoBBo]

UK citizens are free to buy private health insurance if they prefer. Still, 90% of them choose to stay with evil socialist single payer insurance... They must be all communism-loving idiots.

I hope whenever your house might be on fire, whenever someone attacks or robs you, you will proudly reject the services of your local firemen and police officers as they are not working for good wholesome for-profit corporations who charge surge prices during emergencies and choose whose child to rescue first or at all based on who can pay (more).

Coming soon to the US if Obamacare is not repealed.

Obamacare did not introduce a new single payer system. In fact, it greatly expanded access to health insurance since it banned insurance companies from refusing service altogether based on "pre-existing conditions" (rather than 'merely' excluding certain operations for people who are obese and smokers).

 

[Robert]

UK citizens are free to buy private health insurance if they prefer. Still, 90% of them choose to stay with evil socialist single payer insurance... They must be all communism-loving idiots.

The argument against that is that they would go private if only they could afford it but National Insurance contributions are so costly that they're forced to use inferior socialist medical services.

This argument doesn't bear much scrutiny, of course, but that doesn't stop it being trotted out by the privatise-everything brigade.

 

[FluffyMcDeath]

Healthcare ‘For All?’ UK’s NHS to Deny Surgery to Smokers, Obese

Coming soon to the US if Obamacare is not repealed.

Don't private insurers already deny claims for obese smokers? They accept the premium payments, of course, but they won't pay out. That sounds much more fair.