It’s no longer allowed, leaving some cancer patients in the lurch. Despite the hysteria about American health insurers denying treatment, it happens elsewhere as well. Even in a wonk’s dream like the NHS.
No means no. Doesn’t matter whether it’s coming from an insurance or government bureaucrat.
Related posts:
- Why this private health insurance CEO is against a public plan
- Sicko: Is the alternative any better?
- Medicare: The big asterisk
- Should private insurers be kept in the health reform mix?
- Foreigners and US medical care
- Welcome to the HMO world
- Doctors leaving private practice, and where to go next
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The NHS was founded as a moral imperative.
“The collective principle asserts that… no society can legitimately call itself civilized if a sick person is denied medical aid because of lack of means.” –Aneurin Bevan
and further
“The National Health service and the Welfare State have come to be used as interchangeable terms, and in the mouths of some people as terms of reproach. Why this is so it is not difficult to understand, if you view everything from the angle of a strictly individualistic competitive society. A free health service is pure Socialism and as such it is opposed to the hedonism of capitalist society.” –Aneurin Bevan
We have a socialist health care system. Anyone stepping out and opting for a capitalist, individualistic approach to securing their own health concerns by definition is refuting the principles upon which the NHS was founded.
Anyone is free to do so, and if they have the means, obviously will.
But to then return to the socialist provision of (some) free health care in an individualist attempt to save money – and then complain when the system takes umbrage at the half-in half-out stance, I think it’s natural to expect the system to recoil once in a while and tell opt-outers to pick one side of the fence.
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