British NHS dumps fat people and smokers

UK Telegraph story

Obese patients and smokers banned from routine surgery in 'most severe ever' rationing in the NHS

Obese people will be routinely refused operations across the NHS, health service bosses have warned, after one authority said it would limit procedures on an unprecedented scale.

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.

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.​

They can always fly to the US for surgery, and won't have to wait in line like people trying to use Obamacare.

Ahhhhh got to love the single-payer system idea.......

"They said I had to wait a year for a knee operation. I can't wait a whole year. Winter's coming. White walkers are coming."

So why don't they just put more money in the system? Oh that's right......

Notice it hasn't happened yet just the usual special interests trying appeal for more money. The reality is they probably could use a bit more funding but the could also become more efficient if they had to.

What special interests? It's the NHS.

For instance the various unions striking for more money. The NHS itself is an interest group and a favorite tactic is to project doom and gloom unless they get more money only to never have the doom and gloom actually happen. It is like any other department angling for additional resources.

As I said, they probably could use a bit more but there are likely other things the could do to reduce costs as well so tie additional money to meeting efficiency goals.

And that's the problem with nationalized health care. It becomes just another budget item, competing for resources with NASA, the DoD, the Forest Service, and Social Security.

Sorry, but if the government is paying the bills, they can set the rules. The old "my house, my rules" like we all heard from our dads situation basically. Smoking, alcohol/drugs and eating too much is 99 percent preventable. HOWEVER - BMI is bullshit. BMI is for sedentary people - it does not factor in the military, athletes, firefighters, cops, etc. whose occupations demand a higher ratio of muscle to fat - and thus will weigh more for their given height. Granted you take 100 white collar workers, college students, pensioners, etc. and anyone over 30 BMI will likely be obese.

Brexit's fault.

But, you know, "death panels" are total and not at all a plausible end result of human nature.

Or just to avoid being overworked for less.

Considering I've seen that quote attributed to other people, I'm calling bullshit.

.....to plunder for conservative wars of empire.

http://www.snopes.com/politics/quotes/thatcher.asp

If NHS needs more money just raise taxes on the rich people. I mean come on. They've got plenty of money. Take it from them.

Or they cut just stop spending on fat people.

They should probably quit spending on ugly people too. If you keep the ugly people healthy, they're just going to breed more ugly people.

Oh, I'm sure it came from her mouth, but it sounds like something she lifted from Reagan, which he got from a speech writer.

Why is it so dumb Diacanu? We hear and read how the rich don't pay their fair share all the time.

Well fucking make them pay. Do it.

Seig heil!!

It was a critique of the poster, not the post.
See? You should have left it alone, now you'll have the blues.

But it works! Compare.

Putting the rationing part aside, we in America don't operate on obese people willy-nilly, either. Knee and hip surgeries tend to heal a lot better when you aren't four hundred pounds. Even for gastric bypass, you have to be on a diet plan IIRC because otherwise the stomach stretches out again.

BMI of thirty is pretty much the dividing line between overweight and technically obese. Most of those who are around 30 are not the types that you would associate with being fat; you'd just say "oh, they carry a little extra weight."

It's a bad idea to try to save money/improve outcomes/do things quicker by discriminating like that. You can bet fat politicians or important people would be exempt from the 30BMI no surgery rule.

And Simon Cowell, Daniel Radcliff, Kate Moss, Nigel Farage, and Prince Harry smoke. Somehow I don't think the NHS rule will apply to them.

The social process of wealth creation demads that a portion be put back into social, public useage. IIRC Britian is missing tens of billions of tax dollars due it from large corporations; revealed through the Panama Papers.

As for the NHS, this is a desperate measure being taken against the will of the doctors, who are having their hands forced by the Tory austerity budget that hangs over them. I demand free, quality health care for everyone, regardless of weight, smoking status or any other discriminitory measure.

is this the real JohnB?

^ Yeah hi. I'm back for a while.

But "quality" health care costs about a billion dollars per person. Everyone gets a free total body transplant. No word on who the donors are but they must be fabulously rewarded, at least by Guatemalan standards.

If you try to make the system completely uniform, then everyone will be entitled to the same treatment that Bill Gates would get. But that much money doesn't exist because we're not all as rich as Bill Gates. So in anger, you'll try to make sure the very rich can't slosh money on medical researchers and can't pay for health care breakthroughs. The inevitable sequence of events will leave us with a health care system to rival Liberia, a country with several doctors.