The United Kingdom's NHS (National Health Service) is considering the rationing of health care.  This is nothing new and has been talked about numerous times as the Democrats and their leftish friends push for a National Health Care policy in these United States. 

Tom Smith writing at The Right Coast notes that "There's something very strange going on in the UK.  It's getting to the point where it's not even funny anymore." How right you are Tom, and it is only a peek at what will happen in the US if we impose NHC on ourselves.

As a health care provider I offer mental health services to all and sundry.  I choose not to accept commercial insurance, but I am willing to complete the paperwork for a patient to send to his insurance company and receive reimbursement.  The insurance is a contract between the patient and the company, not me.  The only health insurance that I am willing to accept is medicaid because I believe that the poorest among us also deserve quality care.

Seventy-five years ago, this issue wasn't even on the horizon.  Most folk paid their medical bills via payments, barter or per visit on the spot.  Then came the unions insisting that health insurance be a part of the negotiations and bingo, employer provided health insurance became the norm.

As time went on, more and more employers gave in to the idea, and as tort lawyers lobbed onto suing health care providers as a way to get rich quick (does John Edwards come to mind?  Hmmmm?) a number of docs and other health care providers began ordering every imaginable test so that no one could say they weren't being zealous in their care of the patient.  This of course has driven medical care costs through the roof, and subsequently health insurors began rationing care based on sometimes nothing more than a whim.  For example, I once had an insurance company authorize only 3 sessions for a depressed patient and that was the limit, despite the patient's history of suicidal thinking.  I was able to get that decision overturned, but only after many, many hours of negotiations and documentation.  And people wonder why I don't take insurance anymore.  Hah, I'd rather take 1/2 of my regular fee in cash than get the full fee after several hours of insurance required stuff.

So now, the Democrats want to emulate the English.  They claim health care is a right, that the insurance companies are making a fortune, that the poor lack access to health care.  Well, insurance companies do fairly well, but then that is because of their investments more than anything.  As to the poor lacking access, nonsense, what they lack is insurance.  Any person can go to just about any emergency room with just about any complaint and get treatment and never pay a dime for it.  What they can't do, and this is part of a very real problem is make an appointment with a Doc and go to the office.  I solve that problem by doing some pro-bono work.  I limit it, but I'll do it because I think it right.

However the Democrats won't let me have that choice, nor any other health care provider.  In England the rationing is already being talked about: 

In a New Year message to NHS staff, the Prime Minister indicates people may have to fulfil new "responsibilities" in order to establish their entitlement to care.

	Conditional treatment: Smokers are one group of patients that may be asked to change their habits

The new conditions could be set out in a formal NHS "constitution", Mr Brown says.

In his open letter to doctors, nurses and other health workers, the Prime Minister promises to press on with Tony Blair's reforms of the NHS, pledging more personalised care for all patients.

He adds: "We will also examine how all these changes can be enshrined in a new constitution of the NHS, setting out for the first time the rights and responsibilities associated with an entitlement to NHS care."

Well, healthy habits should be encouraged by health care providers, and of course, we all have some responsibility in our health, but for Pete's Sake, mandated?  What ever happened to freedom to choose?  Let me give an unlikely, but entirely possible example."  Let's say you are a smoker, I can understand you being charged more for your insurance, and I don't have a whole lot of sympathy for the cost of treatment for a large number of illnesses, and I'm a recovering lung cancer patient.  I know what the personal and monitary costs of stupid behavior are up close and personal.  But let's say you are a smoker, you don't smoke around your children or in your house or car, but your child has asthma.  How would you feel if your child was denied care because of the "smell" of smoke on your clothes may (or may not) have contributed to the asthma?  Now, anyone with any sense would say wow, active asthma of course I would quit smoking.  And yet, some people are absolutely unable to do so. 

Do we tell the poor who tend to have more physical illnesses than more wealthy folk "Sorry, your poor choices of food, tobacco, alcohol, fill in the blank have made treatment for you impossible?"

Do we tell the elderly that "Sorry, your age makes you a poor candidate for open heart surgery?"

Do we empty the nursing homes because some of those patients won't ever get better?

Do we pull a Terri Schiavo on our handicapped because afterall, most handicapps are life long?

The fact of the matter is, that eventually choices must be made because as one commenter at Tom Smith's article noted it is either on the front end with insurance or on the back end with national health care.  And, despite the Democrat pie in the sky dreaming, we cannot possibly provide all health care to all people in the country at any reasonable cost.  There will always be gaps, there will always be patients who fall through the gaps. 

I chortled not too long ago when some of the facetious Democrat rabble rousers in congress were inveighing against the Veterans Administration for the "poor" health care provided to vets, and these are the folk that want to nationalize health care?  Who the hell do they think runs the VA health care system if not the government.

A friend of mine recently sent me a link to THIS website that contained the following:

Comptroller General of the United States David Walker recently gave a speech titled A Call For Stewardship

word for word:

Candidly, our current deficit and debt levels are not unduly troubling as a percentage of our national economy. However, these deficit levels and related debt burdens are set to escalate dramatically in the near future due to the retirement of the "baby boomers" and rising health care costs. The fact is, absent meaningful reforms, America faces escalating deficit levels and debt burdens that could swamp our ship of state!

This brings me to the longer-range picture. Believe it or not, the federal government’s total liabilities and unfunded commitments for future benefits payments promised under the current Social Security and Medicare programs are now estimated at $53 trillion, in current dollar terms, up from about $20 trillion in 2000. This translates into a defacto mortgage of about $455,000 for every American household and there’s no house to back this mortgage! In other words, our government has made a whole lot of promises that, in the long run, it cannot possibly keep without huge tax increases.

The Medicare program alone represents about $34 trillion of our current $53 trillion fiscal gap. If there is one thing in particular that could bankrupt America, it’s runaway health care costs. And don’t forget, the first "baby boomers" will begin to draw their early retirement benefits under Social Security in a couple of weeks! And, just three years later, they will be eligible for Medicare. When "baby boomers" begin to retire in big numbers, it will bring a tsunami of spending that, unlike most tsunamis, will never recede.

Get the picture?  And the Democrats want to add to that debt.  I don't know about you, but this household doesn't have an extra $455,000.00.  Grow up America, if you want to keep the high quality health care that we have overall then we absolutely have to reform government and get the big spenders out of office! Until then, if the Democrats take over health care, I won't get any of it except maybe a corner to die in. and if you are young, you might not even get that much.

Update:  Changed England to United Kingdom.

Posted at 02:12 PM | Comments (48) | Add Comment
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