Back in the day, in 2009 to be precise, Paul Krugman assured
us that Great Britain’s National Health Service was well worth being emulated. As
you know Krugman is a champion of government control over just about
everything. To his so-called mind everything good comes to us from the government
and from the Democratic Party. Everything bad comes form private enterprise and
the Republican Party. If you know that you do not need to read any of his
columns.
In 2009 Krugman wrote:
In
Britain, the government itself runs the hospitals and employs the doctors.
We’ve all heard scare stories about how that works in practice; these stories
are false.
This absurd conclusion has been debunked so many times, here
and elsewhere, that one questions the need to do so again. And yet, bad ideas
die hard, so here are some new “scare stories” from Great Britain. They tell us
that medical care is now being rationed, according to how overweight you are.
If you fall within the category of obesity you will be deprived certain medical
procedures. And you will also give up your right to certain kinds of medical care if you smoke.
The Telegraph reports:
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.
Hospital
leaders in North Yorkshire said that patients with a body
mass index (BMI) of 30 or above – as well as smokers – will be barred
from most surgery for up to a year amid increasingly desperate measures to plug
a funding black hole. The restrictions will apply to standard hip and knee
operations.
The
decision, described by the Royal College of Surgeons as the “most severe the
modern NHS has ever seen”, 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.
Chris
Hopson, the head of NHS Providers, which represents acute care, ambulance and
community services, said: “I think we are going to see more and more decisions
like this.
“It’s
the only way providers are going to be able to balance their books, and in a
way you have to applaud their honesty. You can see why they’re doing this – the
service is bursting at the seams.”
The
announcement is the latest in a series of setbacks for patients who are
facing rolling strikes by junior doctors that threaten to cripple the health
service as winter approaches.
The
decision by Vale of York Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) comes amid
increasing limits across the NHS on surgery for cataracts as well as hip
and knee operations.
Under
the latest restrictions, patients in the catchment area who have a BMI of 30 or
more will be barred from routine surgery for non-life-threatening conditions
for a year, although they may secure a referral sooner if they shed 10 per cent
of their weight.
What does it all mean? It means that the promise of free
health care for everyone is crashing on the shoals of reality. It means that
the National Health Service is going broke and that one of Great Britain’s
proudest post war achievements—remember the ridiculous celebration of the NHS at the London Olympics—is failing:
Reports
of rationing have emerged after NHS
England admitted in May that its provider sector overspent by £2.45 billion
in 2015-16, more than a threefold
increase on the previous year.
The
figure, which was described as conservative by think-tanks, prompted some
hospital chief executives to question the future viability of free universal
healthcare.
Mr
Hopson called for a “realistic national conversation” about how much should be
spent on the health service, and said that if procedures had to be restricted,
the reduction should be managed on an NHS-wide basis.
See also Simon Heffer's analysis:
See also Simon Heffer's analysis:
It also suffers from grotesque overmanning in non-medical
staff, a lack of strategic planning to cope with demographic change, and many
of the failures associated with the absence of an effective price mechanism.
Without rethinking its whole purpose and method of operation, it will, within a
decade or two, simply collapse.
I'm seeing Sarah Palin's comments about "death panels" being true there first.
ReplyDeleteWe should also remember that Paullie "The Beard" Krugman has a tendency to be overwhelmed by his "intellect".
If government allows itself to withhold services from people who have personal preferences that government bureaucrats do not approve of, how long before it will deny services to people who voice opinions they don't approve of either?
ReplyDelete-- theBuckWheat
theBuckWheat @September 7, 2016 at 6:21 AM:
ReplyDelete"...how long before it will deny services to people who voice opinions they don't approve of either?"
Oh, believe me -- they're coming in a Clinton administration. They'll be called "Truth Panels."