Reason.com has an article on Britain's DIY NHS system, the one so admired by American fans (like Michael Moore) of single payer healthcare systems. The article links to this Telegraph article on the NHS "constitution" proposed by Gordon Brown.
What this seems to amount to in practice are the Government's rights to refuse treatment, and the patient's responsibilities to live up to what the state decides are model standards.
There is apparently to be a clear warning that those who adhere to unhealthy habits such as smoking or failing to take regular exercise may be refused NHS care.
This threat is morally outrageous and legally dubious: if lung cancer victims are really to be left to die without medical care because they are smokers, or heart disease sufferers turned away because they have not succeeded in losing weight, this will make a mockery of the principle of universal healthcare free at the point of need.
Such a policy would also fly in the face of the normal expectation of human rights. If a private insurance company to which people had been paying premiums over a lifetime were to declare retrospectively that it would not cover treatment for smokers or the overweight, its customers could rightly sue for breach of contract.
The article goes on to point out that the best form of self-help--insurance--ironically, is still denied to British citizens.
I've spent the last year chronicling the horrors of the British health system where long waits and mismanaged care are normal. I've also complained about our winner-take-all system where, if you're lucky enough to work for a company with good insurance, you can have practically any procedure done without concern. But if you have very limited insurance or no insurance, your choices are far more limited and far scarier. I'm for more regulation of the industry--mainly that insurance companies cannot bar all coverage to someone who has had some particular disease--but single payer healthcare is a nightmare for anyone who has had to live with it.
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