The Stupidity of Centralized Health Care Control Has Bureaucrats Accusing Child Cancer Patient of Obesity

Bureaucratic centralized control is the bane of good medicine.  And yet, our fearless leaders keep wrapping the system in increasing bureaucratic chains, giving  faceless planners ever more power, sapping the system of competency and efficiency.

One bureaucratic agenda item is fighting childhood obesity. That’s a good cause, but once medicine takes on a centralized check list approach, stupidity naturally ensues.  Case in point, from the UK: Bureaucrats have accused a boy with cancer of becoming obese after his chemotherapy treatment led to weight gain.  From the story:

A schoolboy battling cancer has been branded overweight by NHS bosses - after putting on 2lb following gruelling chemotherapy treatment. Medics even suggested that five-year-old Lewis Mighty should take up swimming, even though an intravenous line put in his chest to deliver cancer-busting drugs made it impossible. The youngster, who was given only 20 per cent chance of survival, was diagnosed with neuroblastoma in October 2008. He has since endured months of intensive chemotherapy, surgery and radiotherapy which saw his weight plummet to two stone.

His achievement to put on a few pounds was seen as a milestone for proud mother Jaime, 33. So she was left stunned when a letter from NHS Derby City came through the letterbox of the family home in Mackworth, Derbyshire,  saying for his age and sex Lewis was 2lb over what was classed as a healthy weight - between 2st 7lb and 3st 3lb. Incredibly, it even warned he could be at risk from cancer.

Obamacare emulates the NHS’s centralized control—an approach our new selected office temp, Medicare/Medicaid income redistributor/rationing advocate Donald Berwick, has called a “global treasure.” If we keep on this path, we too will soon see such utter stupidity—and worse—such as Oregon Medicaid refusing rationed chemotherapy but offering two cancer patients assisted suicide.