Some more news from the oh so civilized British Isles where a struggling socialized medical system has already begun rationing care. Doctors in the system wanted it rationed more, and are promoting Stalinesque policies which would deny care to those for whom care wouldn’t be guaranteed effective:

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

Smokers, heavy drinkers, the obese and the elderly should be barred from receiving some operations, according to doctors, with most saying the health service cannot afford to provide free care to everyone.

Fertility treatment and “social” abortions are also on the list of procedures that many doctors say should not be funded by the state.

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.

Meanwhile, £1.7 billion is spent treating diseases caused by smoking, such as lung cancer, bronchitis and emphysema, with a similar sum spent by the NHS on alcohol problems. Cases of cirrhosis have tripled over the past decade.Among the survey of 870 family and hospital doctors, almost 60 per cent said the NHS could not provide full health care to everyone and that some individuals should pay for services.

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.

“Free health care” is bankrupting the English system and the left wants to bring it here? I guess they’ll be O.K. with their grandparents sent home from the hospital because a doctor has said the cancer treatment they need is better used on a younger, perhaps better politically connected, patient.

Nothings free in life and sick Englishmen are learning that the hard way. I also noticed the article reports that incidents of interesting alcohol related illness, specifically cirrhosis, have tripled in the last ten years of the neo-socialist Labor government. I assume that means alcoholism is on the increase.

Every year England becomes more and more like the Soviet Union.