NHS Tyranny Proposal to Ban Smokers, Obese from Surgery | National Review
Description: Centralized control in health care eventually leads to bioethical authoritarianism ...
Keywords: Wesley J. Smith

# The Corner

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by Wesley J. Smith October 18, 2017 9:15 AM

Calling Bernie Sanders! Calling Bernie Sanders. STAT!

A serious policy proposal in the UK would ban many surgeries for smokers and the obese. From the Telegraph story:

> The NHS will ban patients from surgery indefinitely unless they lose weight or quit smoking, under controversial plans drawn up in Hertfordshire…

> In recent years, a number of areas have introduced delays for such patients – with some told operations will be put back for months, during which time they are expected to try to lose weight or stop smoking.

> But the new rules, drawn up by clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) in Hertfordshire, say that obese patients “will not get non-urgent surgery until they reduce their weight” at all, unless the circumstances are exceptional.

> The criteria also mean smokers will only be referred for operations if they have stopped smoking for at least eight weeks, with such patients breathalysed before referral.

Ah, single-payer healthcare in action.

What other patients with unhealthy lifestyles will be banned next? The promiscuous?

Of course, that will–and should–never happen because unlike the obese and smokers, promiscuous people are not scorned by the technocrats.

But the injustice would be the same. Centralized control in health care eventually leads to bioethical authoritarianism.

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