Doc is the UK are coming out and saying “Just die, why doncha?”
Don’t treat the old and unhealthy, say doctors
Doctors are calling for NHS treatment to be withheld from patients who are too old or who lead unhealthy lives.
Smokers, heavy drinkers, the obese and the elderly should be barred from receiving some operations, according to doctors, with most saying the health service cannot afford to provide free care to everyone.
Oh sure, the British Medical Association says they’re recoiling in horror over the idea, but they don’t control the policy or the budget.
The people who do don’t sound that phased
NHS Accused of 17,000 unnecessary deaths
More than 17,000 people receiving treatment in the UK have died unnecessarily because of the inadequacies of the NHS, it is claimed today.
The figure, in a paper published by the Taxpayers’ Alliance, is calculated using data given to the World Health Organisation. It compares the number of people who died prematurely, even though their illness was treatable, in five European countries.
“Thousands of people are dying every year thanks to Britain’s health service not delivering the standards people expect and receive in other European countries,” said Matthew Sinclair, a policy analyst at the alliance and author of the report.
“Billions of pounds have been thrown at the NHS but the additional spending has made no discernible difference to the long-term pattern of falling mortality … we need to learn lessons from European countries with healthcare systems that don’t suffer from political management, monopolistic provision and centralisation.”
However, the King’s Fund, an independent health thinktank, said that while the basic methodological approach of the study seemed to be valid, the conclusions were not placed in context. An extra 17,000 deaths might seem high, but that figure needed to be set against annual mortality, which was between 750,000 and one million deaths every year.
Oh, well, if it is only an extra 17,000 out of an average 1,000,000, then I guess nobody will mind losing them all that much. Except for, you know, their families and the like who may have wanted a better “medical outcome”.
(Link found at Sailor Curt’s)
Pro-socialized medicine bloggers get the same news feeds I do, but amazingly, they never write about these stories.
Especially when things like this happen
Cover All Kids enrollment 12,000 higher than expected
At this morning’s GMAP session on healthcare, the Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS) gave an update on the “Cover all Kids†health legislation from last year, which expanded state-funded healthcare for children whose parents make up to 250% of the federal poverty level. Starting January 2009, DSHS must cover all children under 300% percent of the federal poverty level (about $62,000 for a family of four).
As it turns out, more children have enrolled in the program than anticipated—a lot more. So where are all these kids coming from and why the discrepancy? According to DSHS, about 12,000 non-citizen children enrolled in the program in a two month period when the new eligibility standards kicked in.
It is notable that the fiscal note provided by the governor’s budget office and relied upon by the legislature when the bill passed assumed some 6,680 illegal immigrant children would be added to the state’s rolls by the end of the 2007-09 biennium. The June caseload forecast council raised the estimate to 16,825. No doubt that estimate will also have to be revised upward, based on initial enrollment data.
To top off the insanity, DSHS plans to pay a private marketing firm to advertise the program in an effort to recruit and enroll even more kids (most of which, are already enrolled in the state’s Basic Health program or carry private insurance).
Groups such as the EFF and people such as myself told our legislators that this is exactly what would happen if this bill passed. They either ho-hummed it away of pooh-poohed the idea.
So now how many citizen children will have to wait for care or even be denied because of their willing blindness?
