The "Right" To Pay For Your Own Medicine

Yeah, that’s what I want; permission from the government to pay for the medicine my doctor says I need.  That should never be in question, yet it is in the People’s Republic of England.

Cancer patients deserve to be able to pay privately for drugs without having their free NHS treatment withdrawn, a doctors’ leader said last night.

Baroness Ilora Finlay, president of the Royal Society of Medicine, said Labour’s policy of denying free care to patients who use their own money to buy the latest drugs went to the heart of the purpose of the health service.

Lady Finlay, a doctor who specialises in the palliative care of cancer sufferers, asked:

‘Can we justify spending billions of pounds on the relief of relatively minor conditions and deny patients with life-threatening disease the support of the NHS when they want to bridge the costs themselves?’

Oh no, say the proposal’s detractors.  That would be unfair.

The Government says allowing cancer suffers to pay for some drugs while receiving others free would create a two-tier health service, with patients on the same ward being given different drugs depending on their ability to pay.

But critics say it is ‘cruel and perverse’ to stop people using their own money to better their health.

The NHS has determined what cancer treatments it will and won’t pay for, and even if you could afford it, you’re not allowed to, unless you want to take on the full burden of payment for all your health care, and essentially forfeit the taxes you paid into the system. 

These are the kinds of debates you get into when you let the government run health care.  They pay, so they are in control.  Of everything.  One size does not and has never fit all when you’re talking about wellness.  Do we really want these sorts of debates in Washington?

Technorati Tags: socialized health care, England, Baroness Ilora Finlay, Royal Society of Medicine

Filed under: Government • Medicine

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