The single payer National Health Service of England has announced that it will ban smokers and people with a body mass index of 30 or above from routine surgeries.

The Telegraphis reporting:

Hospital leaders in North Yorkshire said that patients with a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or above – as well as smokers – will be barred from most surgery for up to a year amid increasingly desperate measures to plug a funding black hole. The restrictions will apply to standard hip and knee operations. TRENDING: Liberal Prof Suggests Former VP Joe Biden Announce He'd Appoint Michelle Obama to SCOTUS To Honor RBG The decision, described by the Royal College of Surgeons as the “most severe the modern NHS has ever seen”, led to warnings that other trusts will soon be forced to follow suit and rationing will become the norm if the current funding crisis continues.

The decision is seen by some as a praiseworthy effort to balance the books of a system struggling to sustain itself.

Nevertheless, it’s a drastic measure, leaving people in pain on a waiting list because they don’t meet the NHS’s new standards.

The Telegraph continues:

Under the latest restrictions, patients in the catchment area who have a BMI of 30 or more will be barred from routine surgery for non-life-threatening conditions for a year, although they may secure a referral sooner if they shed 10 per cent of their weight. […] However, Clare Marx, president of the Royal College of Surgeons, condemned the decision to bar obese patients and smokers from routine surgery. “This policy from Vale of York is among the most severe the modern NHS has ever seen,” she said. “Leaving patients waiting in pain for treatment longer than is clinically necessary cannot be accepted. In the last month alone, the Royal College of Surgeons has learnt of at least three clinical commissioning groups that are planning to introduce policies that deny or delay patients’ access to surgery as a means to cut spending. “At this rate we may see brutal service reductions becoming the norm, rather than just being exceptions.”

Is this a necessary step to save the NHS? Or is it a symptom that the system isn’t working, and more restrictions are sure to follow?

Whatever the case, you can be sure that we’ll see something very similar to this happening in the United States, if liberals get their way and pass a single-payer health plan.

Heck, we might even see this happeneing soon under Obamacare. When government has to pay your health bills (by hiking up taxes on your fellow citizens, of course), they have a vested economic interest in making sure you follow all the rules THEY decide.

And if government decides smokers and the obese are too costly to cover, you can bet they’ll be dumped on the curb and forgotten faster than you can say, “This is a big f***ing deal.”

Be sure to let us know what you think, and sound off in the comments below.





