UK Health Care System Indicates What Is Coming To America

[From article]
What is happening in Great Britain’s vaunted in NHS (National Health Service) is of vital interest to Americans. Dr. Donald Berwick, one of the prime designers of the Affordable Care Act, proudly said in 2010 that the NHS was his model for our ACA. By seeing where the NHS is today, we can foresee where U.S. healthcare is headed tomorrow.
To reduce the escalating costs of their healthcare system, the NHS has been rationing care, either by stating what care will be denied or by restricting how much money is allocated and thus limiting the supply of authorized goods and services. That is why people wait forever for care.
[. . .]
British hospitals have begun advertising that self-funded patients can move up the queue, or they can get care that is denied by NHS rationing. In other words, those with money, who already paid for their health care through taxes, can get the care they need by paying (again) out of pocket. Those without sufficient resources to pay double are moved even further down the queue and are unlikely ever to get care.
Over the years, NHS medical rationing has gotten more and more severe. Early on, it was things like no transplants over the age of 70. Then, they denied heart surgery over 65. Next it was no kidney dialysis over age 55. Now, rationing is draconian: hip replacements, arthritis injections, and cataract surgery deferred, delayed, or denied -- the three “D” strategy most hated by Americans when used by U.S. insurance companies.
[. . .]
Just as in market-based systems, the affluent in single-payer systems can get care that is denied to the less fortunate.
[. . .]
ACA’s IPAB (Independent Payment Advisory Board, renamed for purposes of disguise as the HTAC, Health Technology Assessment Commission) [. . .] and all single payer systems, death is the preferred (read: cheaper) solution for those with chronic (read: expensive) illnesses.
So, Americans already have the medical half of the worst of all possible worlds: health care that is medically effective but is withheld from us by being classified as “Not Cost Effective.”

http://americanthinker.com/2014/09/in_the_toilet__british_nhs_today_us_healthcare_tomorrow.html

September 13, 2014
In the Toilet' -- British NHS Today; U.S. Healthcare Tomorrow
By Deane Waldman