Anyone who doesn’t think that this is the future of government run healthcare just hasn’t been paying attention. The UK is our future. Once Obamacare fails and the liberals and Democrats convince the American people that government run single-payer is the way to go, here’s what you can expect:

Up to 60,000 patients die on the Liverpool Care Pathway each year without giving their consent, shocking figures revealed yesterday.

A third of families are also kept in the dark when doctors withdraw lifesaving treatment from loved ones.

Despite the revelations, Jeremy Hunt last night claimed the pathway was a ‘fantastic step forward’.

A “fantastic step forward”. If that isn’t Orwellian we need to redefine the term. If you’re not familiar with the Liverpool care pathway, it is ” extreme rationing”.

By that I mean “caregivers” make unilateral decisions about when your life ends, because you cost too much. You may not be particularly ill, but you are a burden. If you are ill, that’s all the more reason to withdraw lifesaving treatment in their estimation. “First do no harm?”  Forget about it …

Records from 178 hospitals also show that thousands of people on the pathway are left to die in pain because nurses do not do enough to keep them comfortable while drugs are administered.

An estimated 130,000 patients are put on the pathway each year.

Concerns have been raised that clinical judgments are being skewed by incentives for hospitals to use the pathway.

We say here often that incentives drive performance. That holds true for bureaucracies as well.  As you can see here, this isn’t some isolated instance of a few hospitals or region or two doing this on their own. This is government policy. And as you can imagine you really have no recourse.

You are looking at our future.

~McQ

Source: http://www.qando.net/?p=14606