Canary in the Coal Mine – This Sceptered Isle, Part LXXIX

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

Unprecedented abuse of power by NHS?  Well of course it’s abuse of power.  But unprecedented?  Not so much.  Remember this? 

"You must go blind in one eye before NHS will treat you"

Fortunately, the public outcry over that one caused NHS to back down.  Who knows what NHS will do this time?

People who believe these things cannot happen in the US are seriously misinformed. Nearly the same thing happened in my own town.  It happened to neighbors of ours whose daughter was diagnosed with mitochondrial disease.  And then the hospital and bureaucrats in the State of Massachusetts took over and tortured the whole family for years.  

People who say nothing like this happens in a nationalized insurance scheme are living in a dream world. These situations will surely arise in the US even if  - and maybe especially if - we end up with some kind of government single-payer medical welfare scheme.

Mark my words.