This is what happens in centralized systems. You end up with rationing, which pits patients against each other for pieces of the finite pie. Latest example comes Scotland where a government adviser suggests robbing from palliative care for the dying to pay for surgeries to treat obesity. From the Scotsman story:
A GOVERNMENT adviser and leading surgeon has suggested that NHS funds would be better spent on providing surgery for morbidly obese patients than on palliative care for the terminally ill. Andrew de Beaux, a consultant weight loss and gastric surgeon at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, believes it is unfair that some patients in the last few months of their life are given expensive treatments while obese patients are ?denied potentially life-saving operations on the NHS and could enjoy the health benefits for many years.
With Obamacare, this kind of thinking is heading our way, too. But we still have time to head it off the centralization of health care by stopping it before it fully gets into the saddle. Repeal.
