Step 1: Make nearly everyone dependent on the government for a basic necessity like health care. Step 2: Deny that necessity to people to don’t comply with the government’s demands.
With Obamacare, we’re setting out on step 1, but the UK is well ahead of us. They have finished step 1 and are setting out on step 2:
A majority of doctors support measures to deny treatment to smokers and the obese, according to a survey that has sparked a row over the NHS’s growing use of “lifestyle rationing”.
Some 54% of doctors who took part said the NHS should have the right to withhold non-emergency treatment from patients who do not lose weight or stop smoking. Some medics believe unhealthy behaviour can make procedures less likely to work, and that the service is not obliged to devote scarce resources to them. . .
Smokers and obese people are already being denied operations such as IVF, breast reconstructions and a new hip or knee in some parts of England. The medical magazine Pulse last month found that 25 of 91 primary care trusts (PCTs) had introduced treatment bans for those groups since April 2011.
Bedfordshire PCT, for example, decided to withhold hip and knee surgery from obese patients until they had slimmed down by 10% or had a body mass index of under 35. Similarly, North Essex PCT obliged obese people to lose 5% of their bodyweight and keep the pounds shed for at least six months before receiving treatment.
The way to prevent this is to put individuals in charge of their health care, which is exactly the opposite of Obamacare.
(Via Instapundit.)
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