Smokers and obese patients being denied routine surgeries in Britain

Henry Bodkin reports at The Telegraph,

Obese patients and smokers banned from routine surgery in 'most severe ever' rationing in the NHS.

Hospital leaders in North Yorkshire said that patients with a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or above – as well as smokers – will be barred from most surgery for up to a year amid increasingly desperate measures to plug a funding black hole. The restrictions will apply to standard hip and knee operations.

Read more here.

Government healthcare: incompetent, disgraceful, and quite possibly criminal.

Roger L. Simon writes:

With veterans dying while waiting lists are falsified, it’s hard to see government healthcare as anything but incompetent, disgraceful and quite possibly criminal.

But it’s not just healthcare, although it’s certainly prominent, important and symbolic. The Obama administration has been the best advertisement for libertarianism across the board in recent memory. Government can’t handle anything, not even the one thing it should handle, the common defense. (It better get it together on that one with Russia and China making a new alliance that might be stronger and more powerful than ever.)

Read more here.