It would appear that the “universal” health care system of France is not so universal after all:
French social security released a statement last week announcing that inactive people who are below retirement ages will not be able to use the state health system.
The new rule applies only to Brit expatriates and other non-French residents, but it underscores an increasingly prominent feature of all “universal” health care systems: entire classes of patients are being denied service.
In Great Britain, this trend is manifesting itself in the denial of medical services to overweight patients and smokers:
Patients who refuse to give up smoking will not receive certain operations on the NHS, health bosses have revealed.
The bottom line here is that the goal of free universal health care is a utopian fantasy. In the real world, the only way government-run systems can make ends meet is to reduce the quantity and quality of services.
Post a Comment