The Virtues of Single Payer Health Care

The Virtues of Single Payer Health Care

It appears that some of the serious funding problems of the British National Health Service--problems that have caused them to withhold treatment for some very old patients who were considered not worth the cost of helping--have been completely solved! Or so I must assume, when I read an article like this, from the January 31, 2008 Daily Mail:

Surrogate mothers could be given up to £15,000 of Health Service money to have children for gay couples, it emerged yesterday.
An NHS trust is considering funding the service for infertile couples - whether they are heterosexual or of the same-sex.
If the proposals are approved, the Health Service will pay for IVF cycles and the expenses surrogate mothers are allowed.
Bosses at North East Essex Primary Care Trust have already discussed the issue at board level.
A report presented to directors said: "It appears that the majority of applications for surrogacy to be funded on the NHS stem from heterosexual couples, but consideration would need to be taken for any homosexual couple or single person who wished to become a parent through surrogacy.
"There are more extreme scenarios to consider, such as the husband or parents of a dead woman applying for surrogacy to provide a baby using the dead woman's embryo."
The trust is waiting on a further report before making a decision next month.

While the focus of the headline is on surrogate mothers for homosexual couples that want kids, the real issue here is talk of having the government pay for a purely elective procedure that is very expensive when, according to the comments by Britons reading this story, the NHS is having to engage in serious cost control measures involving genuine health problems:

This is not a life or death issue like the drugs being refused to thousands of people in Britain today who need them to survive. The reason being given by the health sevice for refusal is the cost.

It's about time life choices were paid for by those who chose them, not the rest of us.

Of course, I believe that NHS already pays for elective procedures such as sex changes which are not only medically unnecessary, but you could make a strong case are indications of more serious psychological problems that need correction. Hence, the large percentage of British sex changes that leave the mutilated victim still confused and seeking more surgery.