British Doctors Admit Open Secret: Rationing

For those looking for nationalized health care in the U.S., look no further that the National Health Service in Britain, but not if you have multiple sclerosis, migraines, cancer, degeneration of the eyes, or a growing list of other ailments.

James Johnson, the BMA chairman, will warn that patients face a bleak future because they will increasingly be denied treatments. He will urge the NHS to be much more explicit about what it can realistically afford to do and ask political leaders to engage in an open, honest debate about rationing….

Some PCTs have been bitterly criticised for refusing to pay for expensive new cancer drugs; treatment to prevent older people going blind through age-related eye degeneration and operations to help obese patients lose weight through stomach-stapling.

Each trust already has a committee of medical experts that takes decisions on whether to fund medication for complaints which are not covered in their basic contract with the Department of Health. These include treatments such as growth hormone for adults, neuro-stimulation for migraines, breast reduction and enlargement, treatments for incontinence and even some care for multiple sclerosis….

Dr Michael Wilks, one of the BMA's senior office holders, revealed the organisation's radical thinking in a recent letter to its 139,000 members updating them on the progress of the BMA working group, headed by Johnson, which has drawn up the document. He told them the group had concluded that 'while the service should remain universal, the challenges raise questions about how comprehensive the service can continue to be. This will depend on whether politicians and the taxpayer are prepared to contemplate either increasing expenditure or explicit rationing.

'Rationing of health care in one form or another has always existed but has not been discussed. While agreeing that an open and honest debate on rationing is needed, the nature of that debate needs to be clarified. It might, for instance, address whether current inequities in care caused by pressures to balance the financial books are preferable to one alternative, which is to set a limit on the availability of some procedures.'

Even after cutting its own costs by using U.S. drug and technology investments at cut-rates, shifting the costs back onto Americans, and inferior training of its medical professionals and short staffing of its medical facilities, Europe can’t afford its nationalized schemes, especially while restricting economic growth through other statist arrangements.