Earlier this week, I had the mixed fortune of coming across this article from the other side of the pond.

According to the article from the BBC and Dr. David Haslam, from the group Experts in Severe and Complex Obesity (ESCO),

• "Britain is in the grip of an obesity epidemic..."
• "Surgery is available...cost-effective..."
• "...the wrong people are getting it....some of those who are biggest should just be offered ‘palliative care' for their obesity."

In a scant few breaths, Dr. Haslam identifies obesity as a problem, acknowledges that a cost effective treatment - if not cure - exists, and dismisses that treatment as impractical. For the Brits, it is the system itself, with its deadly leftist combination of moral superiority and collectivist mentality, which makes this procedure artificially "rare and precious." In 2008, US surgeons performed almost 10 times as many bariatric procedures as compared to the UK.

The National Health Service (NHS) deters physicians from performing the procedure by saddling them with onerous costs and limiting the number of facilities in which to perform the operation. Bureaucrats determine patient eligibility, physician compensation, and in effect guarantee that the price for uninsured treatment is inflated to compensate for the NHS' shortfall.

The author posits that the current rationing plan must be emended, because "the most needy [sic] and deserving individuals often go without" (emphasis mine.) When did needy and deserving become mutually exclusive conditions? The author clings to the Marxist high ground of the ‘greater good' with the relativist morality play of Doris and Sean.

Doris is the unrepentant smoker-of-cigarettes "has limited potential" and should be pumped full of painkillers and placed in a "warden-controlled" facility (we call those prisons.) And to cement us more firmly in the world of fairy tales, Doris will supposedly "fulfill her ambition to see the ocean." Rejoice, her lifelong goal of dying for the State has been granted.

Sean is the pitiable victim of a flawed system who is, "...clearly...the more deserving ....will return to work as a security guard, feed his family and pay his taxes."

In Britain, sixty years of socialized healthcare has produced a scenario that would make Messrs Ponzi and Marx proud, where our worth as people is measured solely on the scale of monies ‘owed' the government to fund the care of more deserving individuals.

Welcome to the Farm.