Isn't is somewhat surreal to read that British doctors would like to stop having to treat the elderly and the unhealthy? Or is it?
Smokers, heavy drinkers, the obese and the elderly should be barred from receiving some operations, according to doctors, with most saying the national health service cannot afford to provide free care to everyone. They are right - unlimited free health care is a contradiction in terms. Fertility treatment and "social" abortions are also on the list of procedures that many doctors say should not be funded by the state. Again, I fully agree with this.
However where I profoundly disagree with these doctors is that they are trying to decide who will and who will not receive treatments. Where did they get THAT power, exactly? If the obese, the smokers, the elderly etc want to get treatments that may prolong and improve their lives, they must have that right. But they must also PAY for it. And this is my fundamental point - socialised medicine is such a very bad idea.
People should take responsibility for their own health and making the necessary FINANCIAL provision. For decades, Britons have been told that the State will provide them with all their medical needs. That was a lie then, it's a bigger lie now. But we have generations of people who think that the National Health Service will provide them with all that they need. The truth is that it cannot, it will not, and they are being led a merry dance by successive British governments. Telling the electorate that they will have to be financially responsible for their own health is not good for ones political health but no one will say it. But it's still the truth.
Socialised medicine, that proposed by Hillary Clinton, does not work. It is worse than that though because it relentlessly drives down medical standards, it provides the worst of all worlds, and means that we end up with doctors deciding that they will not treat the sick and needy.
Cross posted on A Tangled Web
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