The Socialized Medicine Follies: Part 56784

We’ve talked about this before here at RNS, but now it is just about official:

Deny Surgery to Obese and Smokers, Says UK Health Minister

As Britain grapples with what’s been called an obesity epidemic, a leading government minister here says grossly overweight people should be denied surgery.

Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt said in a newspaper interview this week she approved of doctors refusing overweight patients knee and hip surgery, until they lose weight.

They say that they are going to give overweight patients access to “programs” that will help them lose weight, but as I said before, how is a person who is in need of a new hip or knee supposed to work out enough to lose weight?

And what about downtime from work? Recovery from knee and hip surgury is already a time consuming process, and now this person is going to have to take an additional three-months off to drop 50lbs before the government will even put them under the knife? The person will be out of sick leave and on public assistance before they can re-start their gainful employment.

But wait! That isn’t all the UK National Health Service is doing to people!

Cancer patients told life-prolonging treatment is too expensive for NHS

PATIENTS with advanced kidney cancer in Scotland are to be denied a drug which could prolong their lives.

The Scottish Medicines Consortium (SMC) yesterday refused to recommend Sutent for use on the NHS, meaning patients who fail on current treatment will have no other drug options.

The decision was criticised by doctors and charities, which said around 300 patients a year in Scotland would benefit from the treatment.

Pat Hanlon, from Kidney Cancer UK, said:

“We know the NHS has limited resources, but for patients with kidney cancer there are not many other treatments they can try.

“When they stop responding to interferon, there is nothing else for them.”

Paul Nathan, a consultant medical oncologist, said data showed that Sutent doubled the length of time before kidney cancers started growing again.

Dr Nathan said, while it was not a cure, it could extend patients’ lives by eight months or more.

A consultant oncologist working in the NHS in Scotland, who asked not to be named, said he understood that the NHS had a limited pot of resources.

“But for my patients, if you are diagnosed with advanced kidney cancer your chances of responding to current treatment are minimal – four out of five will get no benefit,” he said.

“Then the NHS is saying to them, ‘Tough luck, there’s nothing we can give you’.

“But that is not the case. If you lived in North America you would get these drugs, but not in Scotland.”

What was that I heard? Us yokels across the pond could get the effective treatment, because of our capitalist medical community, but the wonderful socialized med program in the UK is saying “Just go die, why don’t ya!”?

That is what I thought I heard.

The pro-socialized med creeps are always whining about how “They don’t want a corporation to be making their medical decisions for them.” Well sorry, Charlie, at least you can sue a corporation. You just go trying to sue a government when they kill your family members.

All this is brought on by this bit of news from Washington’s Capital

Democrats pass unsustainable health care entitlement bill

Senate Bill 5093, which offers health care insurance to all children in Washington by 2010, passed in the Senate today despite Republican pleas that the bill is too expensive and will sink the state deeper in promises it can’t keep.

“This bill covers families at 300 percent of the federal poverty level,” said Sen. Cheryl Pflug, R-Maple Valley and ranking Republican on the Senate Health and Long-Term Care Committee. “That means a family of four making $62,000 a year would be eligible. That’s higher than the median income in 37 of Washington’s 39 counties – an enormous and unsustainable entitlement program.”

Sen. Joe Zarelli, R-Vancouver and ranking Republican on the Senate Ways and Means Committee, said that without the amendments offered by Senate Republicans, the bill won’t come close to its intended purpose.

“On one hand, we say we want to cover children in this state who don’t currently have health care coverage,” Zarelli said. “But we know, from in-depth analysis done by our budget staff, that 60 percent of the new enrollees on this plan will actually come from the private sector. These will be children who currently have private health care coverage but their parents will now qualify for the cheaper state-subsidized plan. Six out of 10 new enrollees will be from families who cancel their current private plans in favor of the taxpayers’ generosity and the heavily subsidized state plan.”

“Since 60 percent of new enrollees will come from private insurance, we’ll be even worse off,” said Pflug, “The state has such a low reimbursement rate for primary care doctors, more physicians will be refusing to see children on the state plan. So instead of being better for kids, it will be much worse. Many children could actually lose their primary care physician.”

Taking my tax money “For The Children” of families who don’t need it. Maybe it is time I start making the wife squirt out a multitude of little me’s so that I can catch up on some of this free shit?

I know that the tax refund I sent in for on Monday morning would have at least doubled, if not tripled, if I were blowing my money on diapers and shoes.

It is not the government’s job to give people incentives or reimburse them for birthing, or to cover the little yard ape’s bumbs, bruises and breaks.

And just wait until one Primary Care Pediatrician starts turning away kids who were previously under their care. You’re gonna see the state start suing doctors to make them accept the state-run plan, which will only lead more doctors to leave the state.

I think Idaho is going to have an influx of “child health care professionals” in the next five years. At least, that is where the smart ones will go. If Washington passes this, Oregon will soon follow.

And to just grind this deeper into my face, the State Republican’s tax-cut proposals that we spoke of here a few weeks back after the conference call with Mr. Completely and John Rothlin, the House Republican Communications Director, were recently shot down by the Dems.

In that post I made mention that the money was sitting there acting as a temptation to the Dems for their pet-projects. Well, I can think of a few people I know who vote Democrat and think of their children as pets.

So I guess that this fits nicely for them.