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| Thursday, January 3, 2008 |
Better to Be Equal Than Good
By Paul Hsieh, MD @ 12:02 AM   
The government-run British National Health Service (NHS) has decided that it's more important for patients to be treated "equally" than for them to get good care. Hence, the monstrous spectacle of them threatening to cut her off from any government medical care if she chooses to spend her own money on cancer therapy outside of the government system:NHS threat to halt care for cancer patient
A woman will be denied free National Health Service treatment for breast cancer if she seeks to improve her chances by paying privately for an additional drug.
Colette Mills, a former nurse, has been told that if she attempts to top up her treatment privately, she will have to foot the entire £10,000 bill for her drugs and care. The bizarre threat stems from the refusal by the government to let patients pay for additional drugs that are not prescribed on the NHS.
Ministers say it is unfair on patients who cannot afford such top-up drugs and that it will create a two-tier NHS. It is thought thousands of patients suffer as a result of the policy. Citizens in the UK are told that they get health care as a guaranteed "right". But in reality, when the government takes over medical care, it decides who gets what care and when. So rather than being a right, it inevitably becomes a privilege dispensed at the discretion of the government. That has happened time and time again in countries like Canada and the UK that have implemented socialized medicine. The way they avoid having a two-tiered system (one good and one bad) is to force everyone into a single-tiered bad system. So much for the supposed moral superiority of government-run health care...Labels: Countries, UK
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