Tuesday, August 12, 2014

And when you're dependent on government-run health care, guess who gets to choose

who lives and who dies?
Older patients would effectively be written off on the grounds that they no longer make a big enough financial contribution to society.

The Department of Health is demanding the changes in an attempt to cut the crippling NHS medicines bill.
...
In the latest onslaught on the elderly, drug rationing body the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has admitted that ministers want workers who are still contributing to the economy to come first.

NICE has been ordered to take into account the “wider societal benefit” when considering which drugs to fund.
The drugs watchdog already admits that such criteria would “inevitably take age into account to some degree”.
Remember, this is the NHS that Obamacare designers said should be a model for us.  They freakin' LOVE this system.  And this is a big reason why: control of who gets treatment.  "I'm sorry, but you are no longer contributing to the economy by working, so for the good of the collective you cannot be allowed this medication, it's too expensive."

A Department of Health spokesman said: “We want to make sure we get the best possible results for all NHS patients with the resources we have, which means using taxpayers’ money responsibly and getting good value for money.

“That’s why we have asked NICE to look at the way drugs are assessed so that patients can get the treatments they need at the best value for the NHS and the price the NHS pays is more closely linked to the value a medicine brings.
Isn't that a nice way to say "If you're not contributing enough to Society in our opinion, you're screwed"?

3 comments:

Keith said...

a communal system of centrally planned rationing based on armed robbery is just so morally superior to choosing on a free market.

the whole public service ethos of the beloved British NHS...

The British Leyland (Austin Allegro) of medicine

Windy Wilson said...

This was exactly how the character played by Rod Steiger in "Dr. Zhivago" characterized his continued survival through the Russian Revolution. "I am still alive because I am still useful to the Soviet", or words to that effect.

Windy Wilson said...

When "Healthcare Reform" first started to be something discussed in the national media back in 1988-89, there was an article, I forget where, that referred to the system where the payor was not the patient, as "veterinary medicine". In case it escaped the attention of Leftists, when you're paying for the healthcare of your dog or cat or rat or hamster or gold fish, at some point you look at the costs, what you hope to get out of the relationship with the pet, and perhaps the pain/physical state of the pet, and you tell the vet to "put him down."
That conversation with the vet has an entirely different cast when you're the owner versus when you're the aged and beloved arthritic and incontinent dog. Couple that with the job the Leftists have done on the baby boomers about over population, and there is no one but the government to consider the physical state of the faithful pet boomer. And the government accountants are ruthless.