Britain's National Health Service Ratchets Up the Rationing

Via The Independent:

Hip replacements, cataract surgery and tonsil removal are among operations now being rationed in a bid to save the NHS money.

Two-thirds of health trusts in England are rationing treatments for "non-urgent" conditions as part of the drive to reduce costs in the NHS by £20bn over the next four years. One in three primary-care trusts (PCTs) has expanded the list of procedures it will restrict funding to in the past 12 months.

Cato's Dan Mitchell has a lengthy back-catalog of NHS horrors here. 

Comments

[Old Mexican]

Britain's National Health Service Ratchets Up the Rationing

"Britain's National Health Service is quickly running out of other people's money, so it Ratchets Up the Rationing"

In a nutshell.

[Progrssive Moron]

All of the trendy Eoro countries have National Health Care. How can we be a modern country without one of our own. We will just run ours better and everyone will get everything.

[John C. Randolph]

and OUR socialized medicine will only have 17-week wait times, not 18 weeks like the brits!

-jcr

[Old Mexican]

Typical Lefty Boob Argument:

"But healthcare IS rationed all the time! What do you think insurance companies do?"

Insurance companies do not tell you that you cannot pay the doctor directly even if you have the money. Instead, the BNHS forcefully restricts access to doctors for those that COULD pay. THAT'S rationing.

[DEM]

In the make-believe world of a liberal, anything allocated by price -- which is pretty much everything -- is "rationed."

[A. Freeman]

Maybe the British National Health Service is restricting access; however be aware that US Health Insurance carriers also are reluctant to allow for extra payment by the patient beyond their payment schedule for a procedure.

I was informed of this fact in 2007 when I had my first hip replacement; my second was in May of this year. One deciding factor was the accleration of provisions of PPCA as they are implemented.

Rationing of expensive procedures is inevitable under a socialized system; however try telling a person with severe osteoarthritis of your hip joints that you are not eligible for the list - just yet. I did not have medical marijuana option and replaced it with addictive opiates and that just dealt with the pain (when you are allergic to the stage of anaphalayxis to most non-opiate pain relievers, life gets interesting); it did not address the mobility loss. At 47 for the first surgery, I did not feel like becoming a drug addicted invalid to satisfy some bureaucrat's bottom line numbers.

And so, like a true believer in the free market, I would have paid for the operation myself. Fortunatley, I had insurance, a good surgeon and a healthcare plan that recognized that a productive person benefits society.

[leviramsey]

The NHS is best understood as a monopoly HMO. Hell, if you go to the forum at britishexpats.com, in the regular threads on health insurance enrollment, the HMO option is typically described as a private NHS.

[kinnath]

Death Panels

[Shmenge]

Lisa needs braces!

[Lenny]

Dental plan!

[Jim]

Socialized Medicine Fever -

Catch it!

[Restoras]

Just don't get a real fever.

[Marge Simpson]

"That's what you said about yellow fever, and that was no fun."

[fish]

Cato's Dan Mitchell has a lengthy back-catalog of NHS horrors here.

Tony sticks fingers in ears and goes La La La here (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089791/)!

[Episiarch]

I once had a knock-down, drag-out argument with joe about the NHS. The fact that I had been through the NHS with very bad injuries didn't even dent his socialized medicine hard-on. Nothing can. Tony's not even real, but it is true of real leftists.

[Res Publica Americana]

My travels brought my in contact with them on numerous occasions, and I'd rather just fly home with broken bones next time, I fucking swear to God.

[Episiarch]

I did fly home with broken bones so that my American surgeon could fix them properly. The limey doctor literally said to "I don't know what your American doctor is going to do, but I wouldn't fix that heel."

Which would have crippled me.

[Warty]

What was the crippling injury that he thought just needed a stiffened upper lip?

[Episiarch]

My femur was snapped, but they fixed that. It was the additional injury of my calcaneus being shattered into five pieces.

[Warty]

Maybe he just thought you deserved what you got for doing parkour.

[Episiarch]

That's why I didn't slug him, because at least he was right.

[Warty]

Wait, you actually were doing parkour? I assumed you fell out of a window while you were tripping balls. I would have left to you die, just so you know.

[Episiarch]

I fell out a window while tripping balls and doing parkour dressed as a mime. I would have completely understood your leaving me there. The paramedics wanted to, but a mime-sympathetic bystander reminded them of their Hippocratic Oath.

[Pro Libertate]

They still have medical ethics under nationalized healthcare? How quaintly English.

[cynical]

"They still have medical ethics under nationalized healthcare? How quaintly English."

Yeah, I thought all Communists were atheistic.

[fish]

Epi this is bullshit! And you're spewing nothing but right wing medical talking points.

[Episiarch]

PWN'D

[Lurker Kurt]

Ah Joe...

Where did he go?

Tony and Shrike have tried to fill his shoes, to no avail.

Although he is gone, Joe's legacy lives on.

[Warty]

You can find him at Balloon Juice, Yglesias' place, and, oddly enough, Urkobold sometimes.

[Episiarch]

He was also at Unqualified Offerings, but Thoreau finally banned him for being an absolute ass, I believe.

[Warty]

Yeah, that was amusing. It must have taken quite a bit of work to get thoreau, of all people, angry.

[Episiarch]

I read the last thread that joe seemed to be on, and he was being an absolute shit directly to Thoreau. I mean, being a shithead to the owner of the site to a degree that I couldn't even believe. Most other people would have banned him after his first comment, and Thoreau let him get in several before banning.

[Solanum]

Poor joe, if only there was a cure for short and angry.

For a while he was soliciting opinions on starting his own blog. I guess it didn't take.

[fish]

Poor joe, if only there was a cure for short and angry

There's no cure...but the state of the art treatment is compulsive masturbation. It allows the Joes of this world to have some semblance of a normal teenaged existence.

[Paul]

Ah Joe...

Where did he go?

Daily Kos. verified and confirmed.

[SIV]

I wonder what joe thinks about poor children starving in Lowell in the depths of The Great Obama Depression?

[Warty]

BOOSH

[Cheeseburger]

I notice the story didn't mention how many of these baby mamas had all the latest in consumer electronics in their purses next to their foodstamps.

[Tulpa]

He came to the blog like a midwinter storm
He trolled through the threads, so handsome and strong
His eyes was his tools and his smile was his gun
But all he had come for was having some fun

If it hadn't been for Liberal Joe
Lowell'd been buried long time ago
Where did you come from, where did you go?
Where did you come from, Liberal Joe?

[Ole Pappy Robert F. Cornbrew]

Make dem darkies do the work. All they do is sit on their asses, doin nothin, and plottin to rape our women.

I shit better work ethic than somethese spooks do.

[Spoonman.]

WTF?

[Lord Humungus]

Perhaps a "we're all racist ya-da-ya-da" troll?

[Gibby]

My question as well.

[Hugh Akston]

The ambition of every H&R troll is to make us nostalgic for the departed trolls of yesteryear.

[Episiarch]

Well, they're succeeding admirably.

[Clich? Bandit]

no shit

[Paul]

The ambition of every H&R troll is to make us nostalgic for the departed trolls of yesteryear

And to make us dream of what could be next year.

[The Enema Man]

Ou sont les trolls d'antan

[Ole Mammaw Sadie J. Cornbrew]

Never mind Ole Pappy, he's just bent o'shape because Tom Crosbie (he's a colored) beat Pappy in a game of checkers.

He won't lynch nobody. Pay him no mind.

[Res Publica Americana]

F-. Your southern impression is pretty lame.

[MiNGe]

And you wonder why more disabled people blah blah blah stale spoof.

[Ole Pappy Robert F. Cornbrew]

Shaddup, woman. You been lettin' that darkie sniff 'round yer taint again?

[Ole Mammaw Sadie J. Cornbrew]

Why, yes Pappy. But the colored boy said he'd just need a good whiff of ole kitty just to get him through the day. Pappy, he's such a sweet boy, don't hurt him!

[Kristen]

But but but but....it's FREE healthcare! Nobody pays for it! It's all free, I tells ya!

[Doktor Kapitalism]

TANSTAAFL

[Joe M]

I want to make a joke about this, but it really is fucked up and tragic. It makes me sad about the whole world that this crap continues day after day, and people think we're the bad guys.

[Episiarch]

I watched people die in my NHS hospital room (8 people to a room!), and others there to have their diabetic toes and fingers cut off, including an 18 year old kid. Our painkillers were basically acetaminophen, and their MRI looked like an original series Star Trek set. Their computers were green screen terminals running off some archaic mainframe.

The food, of course, was...British. Hospital. Food. Think of what that means.

[Res Publica Americana]

I'll tell you about my first experience.

It had to do with my encounter with soccer hooligans who wished my yank family to, as I remember, "fucking get raped and hanged like pigs", and insisted America got exactly what it deserved on 9/11, etc. I've written about it before.

The heavy shit they spent half an hour throwing at us, and the near-clashes, left serious bruises and a broken wrist.

Watch the Captain America movie, memorize the fake room they build for him at the end of the movie to make the transition to the present easier, and you've got yourself a British hospital, only with more wooden doors, and a lot dirtier.

The doctors wouldn't see you, sending members of their "specialist team" (nurses, and shitty ones), the x-ray screens wouldn't work, the MRI took two hours to sort of repair, and one of the most horrifying things I've ever experienced personally is watching an old woman yell for help, and hundreds of staff walking by completely ignoring her.

I almost fucking puked my guts out in disgust. This was 9 years ago.

My encounter in late 2009 was no better, to be frank.

[Paul]

The food, of course, was...British. Hospital. Food. Think of what that means.

All food in Britain is Hospital food.

[Episiarch]

It was Welsh British hospital food.

AIIIGGGGHHHHHHHHH

[T]

Wouldn't that just be Brytsh Hsptwl Fwd?

[fish]

Wouldn't that just be Brytsh Hsptwl Fwwd?

If you were educated by the public school system in Oakland California that would be a perfectly acceptable spelling of "British Hospital Food".

[DEM]

Sounds like Nirvana if you ask me. Really crappy healthcare is best because it permits everyone to have equal access to the crappy care. Shit sandwiches for all!

[Paul]

watched people die in my NHS hospital room (8 people to a room!), and others there to have their diabetic toes and fingers cut off, including an 18 year old kid.

Oh, C- Episiarch. You've completely overlook the fact that they had access to care. Remember, it's all about access.

[Tolly]

It doesn't matter - there's a hundred other countries - whose national healthcare programs haven't hit the skids - that all the liberal folks can keep telling us we should go parrot.

[OO]

insurance co bureaucrats ration care as well; previously by denial of pre-existing conditions & denying all but pallative care for geriatrics. also, governers like brewer ration state medicare by denying transplants.

[Joe M]

You imbecile.

[Res Publica Americana]

Your time would be better spent if you dedicated the next 20 years of your life to watching grass grow. He doesn't give a shit.

[MWG]

Honey badger don't give a shit!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4r7wHMg5Yjg

[OO]

oh yea cause most folks have $100 grand or so for cancer treatment & organ transplants. tards in denial

[Res Publica Americana]

Do you even try anymore?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4i1Bx86Yd1o

[OO]

i served an 18 mo army tour in korea fool. what a tard

[Res Publica Americana]

USMC, and I'm fucking Soviet-born.

Any other irrelevant shit to add?

[OO]

ur the fool posting the n korean flag. and congrats to a fellow vet

[Res Publica Americana]

Hey, I was just trying to lighten the mood with an anti-communist joke. 🙁

[OO]

ok fair enough. a n korean rep is in NYC this weekend to discuss nukes w hillary

[T]

Oh, is he selling?

[Res Publica Americana]

10/10

[fish]

...and I'm fucking Soviet-born.

And still you have better command of the language than "Double Anus"!

[Res Publica Americana]

English has been my primary language since I was really small anyway.

And are all these "OO" posters the same guy, or is it one real guy and a bunch of statist spoofers?

[pmains]

I think it's one guy and a bunch of nurses typing his demented messages so he'll shut up and let them distribute meds to the other patients.

[fish]

And are all these "OO" posters the same guy, or is it one real guy and a bunch of statist spoofers?

It really doesn't matter if his stupidity is the work of one person or a committie. What is important is that it is indeed stupid!

[Joe M]

Money is one of the reasons those treatments even exist.

[Joe M]

Also, if people were allowed to sell their own organs, the availability would go up significantly.

[OO]

the state does it for em in the for-profit organ doner program...profits which the doners family never sees

[DEM]

Guess what, the government doesn't have the $100k either. Hence the rationing.

[Joe M]

Nice.

[OO]

and ur point is? that BOTH private insurance AND the UK ration healthcare?

[The Ingenious Hidalgo]

No. Insurance companies give you what you pay for. The UK Government takes your money and gives you what it feels like.

[Tonio]

The one organ transplant recipient I know got his bills paid by medicare or medicaid (forget which). And he was employed and everything.

So, STFU OO.

[Res Publica Americana]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--K3X6rptE4

Bet that makes you angry, huh, you asshat? CIVILIAN WITH AN SMG! OOOOOOOOOOOO

*Prods liberal for further provocation*

[fullmetaltrousers]

"If he draws on me again, I'm gonna shoot him in his toodles."

Toodles.

Awesome.

[Old Mexican]

Re: OO,

insurance co bureaucrats ration care as well;

Right on cue!!! What did I tell you?

OM:

Lefty: "But healthcare IS rationed all the time! What do you think insurance companies do?"

Insurance companies do not tell you that you cannot pay the doctor directly even if you have the money. Instead, the BNHS forcefully restricts access to doctors for those that COULD pay. THAT'S rationing.

Double asshole is not even being original.

[OO]

so why not predict the sunrise tomorrow ol mex?

[Res Publica Americana]

An ultrasocialistic European shithole, with its governmental monopolies, suffering from a really shitty quality of service in its socialized medical system?

Hold the fucking presses. I AM SURPRISE

[Fartriloquist]

I blame Bush. Or Gillespie. On days spelled with an "r," Palin.

[Res Publica Americana]

You're just a Republican apologist, aren't you? It's not JUST Bush, or Gillespie, or Palin the Destroyer(tm) -- it's ALL of them together, and you, and all the other Republicans ever, in a elaborate conspiracy to make blacks and Mexican kids die in the streets, like Somalia. Fucking heartless!!!!!

[Fartriloquist]

Busted!

[Cheeseburger]

I know this is a lie. Somalia doesn't have streets.

[mustard]

The PPACA health care overhaul isn't like NHS at all. It's more comparable to the French health care system, which we oddly never hear a peep about problems from.

I know libertarians get all crazy-like once they see government being involved in taking care of people, but not every government health care program is the same. You have to be less superficial in your analysis.

[Warty]

I know libertarians get all crazy-like once they see government being involved in taking care of people

You have to be less superficial in your analysis.

Excellent.

[Tman]

Which version of Tony do you think this is? The whole "libertarians get all crazy-like once they see government being involved in taking care of people" strawman seems pretty familiar but perhaps this is Chad testing the waters before his return, or maybe Minge has been getting lonely.

Listen you retarded sock puppets, if you use the same strawmen arguments that your normal handle uses we will KNOW that it's you and treat you accordingly.

Stop being dishonest hacks and argue the principles, not that cartoonish picture of what you believe libertarians are.

[fish]

Which version of Tony do you think this is?

The thumb. When you want policy you get the middle finger.

[Res Publica Americana]

Lmfao

[Au H20]

Yes, this one shows promise.

[Solanum]

A decent start, but don't get your hopes up. He'll disappoint like all the rest.

[Episiarch]

Are our standards too high?

[Warty]

All I ask of our trolls is that they be better than Orrin. I don't think that's too much to ask.

[T]

Spelling is a tool of the patriarchy, Warty. Orrin simply shows his refusal to be sexist.

[Episiarch]

Anonymity Bot is better than OO. Well done, whoever is behind OO; you're dumber than a bot. That takes some real stupidity.

[OO]

i know, i know...

[Tonio]

Don't fall into the trap of soft bigotry of low expectations, Epi.

[NotSure]

Every government health care ends the same, high costs and rationing, that included your hallowed France.

[cynical]

PPACA is a complete fucking disaster. It's unsustainable, and so the only thing worth considering on its merits is whatever stable system eventually emerges in its wake. If it is single payer, it may well end up looking like NHS -- you may not have noticed, but one half of our government sees government services as a way to employ their supporters and thereby get a permanent source of votes and campaign funds; and quality of service provided to the public comes in as a distant second to keeping those supporters happy. A single payer health system in the U.S. will make public education look like a massive success in comparison.

[Nash]

The French Heath Care System is also now in the red. Many of the reforms they are doing include larger out of pocket payments. You eventually run out of money for this stuff and the notion that everyone gets everything in a timely fashion for free is a ludicrous long term goal. You can cheat for a few years but eventually the debt catches up with you and you either need to start raising prices or cutting services.

[The problem is...]

...everyone knows that Obamacare, if implemented in the USA, would be worse than the NHS. Picture bored, uncaring doctors, health-care workers and nurses (all in guaranteed-for-life unionized jobs), groping TSA agents with filthy latex gloves at the entrance to every health care facility, care-denying Death Panels run by six-figure-salaried bureaucrats, and rampant antibiotic-resistant hospital infections. With no way out for the average American.

[Paul]

I disagree. As long as we have some free market elements, it will be generally better than the NHS.

Ironically, the small free market elements will be fingered as the cause of any failures in Obamacare.

Ie, the sea of Obamacare is being contaminated by the tiny atoll of capitalism.

Obamacare didn't go far enough. QED.

[Jason]

Saboteurs and wreckers!

[celtigirl]

With no way out for the average American.

Perhaps this situation will spawn a thriving, if covert, medical tourism trade. If a group of doctors move to an island in the Carribbean, close to the US, and set up "spas" where Americans can go to get the treatments denied in the US, it might be a solution that average Americans can afford. Like a vacation to the Bahamas but with a hip replacement thrown in.

Or it might create the black market effect we see with drugs. Pssst - need a new hip granny? I know a guy who knows a guy...

[Trespassers W]

Isn't this Costa Rica already?

[celtigirl]

Could be. I think once obamacare really kicks in, the travel agency industry might get into the medical tourism business. Perhaps arranging medical themed cruises and Sandals-Cedar-Sinai resort trips 🙂

[Tonio]

groping TSA agents with filthy latex gloves at the entrance to every health care facility

Thanks a lot, Problem, now you've told them how to ration without actually rationing. "We would have treated her, but she refused the security inspection."

Also, union TSA thugs would never wear latex, they might be allergic and break out. Nitrile, bitches, or I'm filing a union complaint!

[DEM]

A specific example of rationing from the article:

Grommets to improve hearing in children only being inserted in "exceptional circumstances" and after monitoring for six months.

Understand that these devices are used to treat middle ear inflections that can cause hearing loss. Now your kid has to endure said loss for up to six months before the doctors will consider fixing it. One supposes that hearing loss alone is not the "exceptional circumstance" justifying treatment. (And here I thought people had a "human right" to treatment. Guess not.) In the world of a leftist, this is the humane approach to healthcare. Always important to keep this in mind when they try to take the moral high ground.

[Res Publica Americana]

I suggest to those Limeys to move to one of the 20 or so good/decent/tolerable states in the US, in that case. Fucking avoid New Jersey at all costs.

[Paul]

The kids are getting access. That's all the moral high ground we need.

[dbcooper]

Quick word on the NHS - treatment is very much dependent on where the hospital is (wealthy area of London vs small regional city) and how much you use your middle class "my problem should get priority" skills.

I've had excellent treatment at UCL Hospital (it's a very good, new teaching hospital associated with an excellent medical school), but I knew how to play the game and get seen by specialists who were also faculty.

They are stingy on pain-killers though, I didn't even get a general during my last colonoscopy.

[Paul]

They are stingy on pain-killers though, I didn't even get a general during my last colonoscopy.

I thought they just sedated you with valium for that. Or is it actually a pain killer?

I opted to not get anything for mine because I had to drive home after.

[dbcooper]

Fair enough, the problem is that it can be difficult to get into the upper reaches of the intestinal tract if the patient is not sufficiently relaxed. At UCSF I had a demerol based general and was quite compliant. At UCL I was aware of what was happening at that stage, was in moderate pain, and was somewhat resistant, making it difficult to get that far up there.

[Paul]

My opinion: Colonoscopies should be rationed. Just sayin'.

[Restoras]

I didn't even get a general during my last colonoscopy

Are you sure it was a colonoscopy?

[dbcooper]

Well I haven't seen anything on xhamster yet ...

😉

[Paul]

After mine I thought I had just scored.

[no painkiller for colonoscopy?]

you are heroic and stout of heart, sir.

[dbcooper]

It's also frustrating to watch discussion of the US healthcare market/regulation that centres on comparison with the UK rather than the much more relevant examples of Switzerland and the Netherlands.

[mustard]

Preciously.

[Solanum]

Defiantly.

[cynical]

What makes you think the U.S. will end up like one of those two?

[um]

because the US has a small healthy and homogeneously white population just like they do?