Socialized Medicine – It’s Wonderful! Until You are Placed on The Death List…
Rationing Takes Its Toll Under British Socialized Medicine — As It Will Here
Liberal lies notwithstanding, ObamaCare does in fact impose a “Payment Advisory Board” — a.k.a. Death Panel — to ration medical care. Once again Britain provides a graphic illustration of what this will mean for aging Americans if Obama is not defeated and ObamaCare is not repealed:
An elderly woman died alone after doctors failed to tell relatives they were ending her life on the controversial Liverpool Care Pathway.
Olive Goom, 85, passed away with no one by her side after medics neglected to consult with her family about her treatment at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital. …
As Miss Goom lay dying alone, staff reassured relatives on the phone just hours before her death that there was no urgent need to visit — even though doctors had already removed tubes providing vital food and fluids.
Her family discovered that she had died only when her niece went to visit her and found she was already being prepared for the mortuary. They said last night that they will never be able to stop feeling guilty that no one was there in her final hours.
It isn’t much consolation, but in a sense Olive Goom didn’t die alone. Bureaucrats have told general practitioners to cut expenses by putting 1% of patients on the “death list.” Yes I’m serious:
GPs have been asked to select one in every 100 of their patients to go on a list of those likely to die over the next 12 months.
The patients will be singled out for ‘end-of-life care’, potentially saving the NHS more than £1billion a year.
As alternatives to this sort of rationing, once ObamaCare is fully implemented we could have Ben Bernanke print up enough play money to pay for healthcare for everyone, or we could keep raising taxes until the entire economy collapses under the weight of government.
On tips from J and Artfldgr.
Time to ask a real question:
What do you think happens in America now?
If you have a preexisting condition, have already had a major medical issue, or are outside their actuarial tables… you get zero coverage. A literal “death panel”, made up of the insurance companies you trust so much.
So… the whole ‘death panel’ thing is completely made up. All heath care has to make decisions on what is valuable and what isn’t.
Now, the other side of the issue: if you live in the UK (or any other Western country), you can use your very own money to buy additional healthcare. Some ancient lady can’t afford to do that? Tough shit. Gotta draw the line someplace. It is no different here – it is just an insurance company telling you to ‘die already’ instead of the NIH. Same outcome.
Did you save your $? Good for you. You can choose to spend some of it on some late-life healthcare. Didn’t save? You get the basics, but nothing more. No knee replacements for 90 year old people. No heroics for people 85+. After some point, you are on your own.
This is the sort of conversation we (Americans) need to have pretty soon here. Healthcare costs are massive. You lot don’t like the idea of everyone having to pay in alike, for whatever reason. It worked in Mass. when His Mittness did it – healthcare costs came down,. the population is all covered… but OK. You don’t like that. Fine. What is it that you prefer? The current system where insurance companies can charge whatever they want, and death panel people every single day? How very Christian of you…
aside: (you do know that what you derisively call Obamacare was written by the right-wing think-tank the Heritage Foundation, right? In a different era when partisan politics didn’t make half of America deliberately retarded?)