The headline is startling, the story is worse

I was engaged in a compelling discussion with a group of politically aware voters at a speaking engagement this week, talking about potential scenarios for the future depending on which candidate wins the presidency. A gentleman raised the concern about universal health care causing the nation more problems than it solves.

This just landed in my inbox from a bioethics newsletter I receive, foreshadowing potential problems with ‘free’ care.

Doctors are calling for NHS treatment to be withheld from patients who are too old or who lead unhealthy lives.

‘Free’ health care sooner or later becomes very costly, and it’s the people who pay the greatest price.

The findings of a survey conducted by Doctor magazine sparked a fierce row last night, with the British Medical Association and campaign groups describing the recommendations from family and hospital doctors as “out­rageous” and “disgraceful”.

About one in 10 hospitals already deny some surgery to obese patients and smokers, with restrictions most common in hospitals battling debt.

Managers defend the policies because of the higher risk of complications on the operating table for unfit patients. But critics believe that patients are being denied care simply to save money.

Rationed health care, selectively applied, is the underbelly of universal plans.

One in three said that elderly patients should not be given free treatment if it were unlikely to do them good for long. Half thought that smokers should be denied a heart bypass, while a quarter believed that the obese should be denied hip replacements.

Tony Calland, chairman of the BMA’s ethics committee, said it would be “outrageous” to limit care on age grounds. Age Concern called the doctors’ views “disgraceful”.

That’s the kind of advocacy necessary to defend the rights of all patients. Especially the more vulnerable (which is getting to be a larger category, it seems).

Responding to the survey’s findings on the treatment of the elderly, Dr Calland, of the BMA, said: “If a patient of 90 needs a hip operation they should get one. Yes, they might peg out any time, but it’s not our job to play God.”