From the UK Telegraph. (H/T Secondhand Smoke)

Excerpt:

NHS managers are making patients wait longer than necessary for operations, with one claiming that treating them quickly “raises expectations” At least 10 primary care trusts (PCTs) have told hospitals to increase the length of time before they see patients in order to save money, an investigation by The Daily Telegraph has found. In some areas, patients endured delays of 12 or 15 weeks after GPs decided they needed surgery, even though hospitals could have seen them sooner. The maximum permitted time between referral and treatment is 18 weeks. In one case a manager said the policy keeps patients in line as “short waiting times also create more demand for treatment due to the expectations this raises”. It comes after an NHS watchdog suggested that if patients are forced to wait a long time, they will remove themselves from lists “either by dying or by paying for their own treatment”.

Wesley J. Smith writes:

And the lessons are? Patients are people, not objects to be maneuvered to meet check list goals.  Centralized control has no place in health care.  Bureaucrats are not patient friendly.  What a disgrace.

Indeed. The best way to run a health care system is to let consumers hold onto their own money. When you keep your own money, you make the decisions. Not some health insurance company nor some government bureaucrat.

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Here’s a sad news story from the UK, where they have a massive state-run health care system called the National Health Service. (H/T ECM)

Excerpt:

A young woman who is starving to death after being diagnosed with a paralysed stomach has been told that NHS bosses refuse to fund an operation to save her.

Rudi Hargreaves, 22, has shrunk from a healthy 10st to a skeletal 5st 10lb after being diagnosed with the crippling condition last year.

Within weeks of being diagnosed with gastroparesis, Rudi found her size 12 clothes were hanging off her – as her stomach became unable to digest food at a normal rate.

The condition can be treated with a £14,000 operation to fit a gastric pacemaker – although this is still considered to be an experimental treatment.

But health chiefs have refused to fund the surgery, saying ‘insufficient supporting information’ has been provided by her GP.

[…]A spokesperson for NHS Hull said: ‘To date, the application in question has not been agreed as, crucially, insufficient supporting information has been provided to allow due consideration to take place.

‘Any requested procedures must also fall in line with the provider trust’s priorities for service development and delivery.

‘The patient’s clinician has been invited to provide the necessary clarification, receipt of which should enable the patient’s case to be progressed within the PCT.’

What’s troubling is countries like Canada, where the government not only decides if you will be treated, but whether you can be treated. That’s because if they deny you treatment, you cannot pay for treatment out of pocket. You have to leave the country and pay someone else out of pocket for the treatment, even though you have have paid into the system for many years. So your money is good enough for them to collect over your life, but when you need treatment, you may not be allowed to get it, and you may not even have the money (after taxes) to go abroad for treatment.