Coming to an ObamaCare Near You: British NHS Bans Obese Patients and Smokers from Routine Surgery for Up to a Year In Most Severe Health-Care Rationing Yet

You're fat? You smoke? Oh well then chap, you just don't have a very strong claim to life.

Sorry old bean. Decisions must be made. Fitter people must be prioritized.

By the way: "obese" means "over 30 on the BMI."

That's a lot of people. A lot. Before my weight loss I was at 30.3 or something on the BMI.

And the BMI is kind of a super-bullshit measure anyway. Like a lot of medical tests, it gets used because it's easy to calculate, not because it's accurate or telling.

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.

...

“It’s the only way providers are going to be able to balance their books, and in a way you have to applaud their honesty. You can see why they’re doing this – the service is bursting at the seams.”

..

The decision by Vale of York Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) comes amid increasing limits across the NHS on surgery for cataracts as well as hip and knee operations.

So we have that to look forward to.

posted by Ace at 01:34 PM

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