A Stitch in Haste

Behold the latest example of the “universal right to health care” —

Barrie Clark, 61, was told in May that he could receive a free supply of a new kidney cancer drug on compassionate grounds from the pharmaceuticals company that makes it.

Clark was then astonished to be told by the NHS that he could not take up the offer at his local hospital because it was against management policy. He could receive the drug, which has been approved as safe, only by paying for nurses to administer it privately.

Clark is in a similar predicament to patients being denied NHS care if they choose to pay for drugs that the health service does not fund. Campaigners are outraged that the ban on allowing NHS patients to pay for private drugs has now extended to letting them receive additional medicines for free.

I briefly noted the referenced “no topping off” abomination in a Questions post back in January. If health care really is “universal” under socialized medicine, then how can questions of “what the system pays for” even emerge in the first place? Doesn’t universal mean, um, universal? As in everybody gets everything they need (or want)?

In reality, of course, the answer is no, “universal” does not mean universal. Health care is a scarce good that must therefore be rationed. All the liberal, fantasy-land, “Just think happy thoughts!” proposals in the world (from the halls of Congress to the halls of The New Republic) can’t change that.

In the meantime, to the health care socialists of the NHS, “universal care” only means that everyone gets to die from cancer on a level playing field. Splendid.

This is what health care socialists consider being “progressive.”

(Via John Ray.)