Single-Payer Hell: British NHS Deny Alzheimers Funding Because "Alzheimer's Is Not A Health Condition"

How do you contain costs when you promised all your citizens "free" health care and now must deliver? Rationing is the only logical conclusion. How does such an entity actually ration care, though, especially for the elderly that are hardest-hit by such rationing? Simple. Redefine their condition so that they no longer qualify for free health care. Basically, push them outside the system via bureaucratic fiat. From Mere Rhetoric via HotAir headlines: British Health System Denies Woman Treatment For 7 Years Because "Alzheimer's Is Not A Health Condition"

Can you really blame them? The woman was already over 65, and it's not like you can cure Alzheimer's anyway. If people aren't willing to make these kinds of tough sacrifices, how do they ever expect socialized medicine to work?

NHS Worcestershire ruled that Judith Roe, 74, did not qualify for NHS funding because her condition was a "social" rather than "health" problem, even though she was so ill she could not make a cup of tea and regularly left the stove on. She was forced to sell her £200,000 home to pay her £600-a-week nursing home fees, which would have been funded if she had been categorised correctly. Mrs Roe's family appealed to the Health Service Ombudsman, which ruled that Mrs Roe's assessment had been incorrect and her treatment should have been funded by the NHS...

Mrs Roe, a retired church warden and school teacher, was diagnosed in 2002 with severe Alzheimer's and Parkinsons. Under English law, elderly people must pay for their own residential care unless their needs are deemed health-related. She was assessed but her needs were regarded to be social rather than health, meaning she did not qualify for funding.

More from the U.K. Telegraph: Family told by NHS: Alzheimer's is not a 'health condition'.

Her son, Richard, 40, urged other families in a similar situation to fight for the care they are entitled to.

"They told me I should count myself lucky because there are people that are more ill than my mother, which was an outrageous thing to say.

"The NHS doesn't want to admit elderly people have health issues because then it falls to them to pay for their care."

"We became very angry because the primary care trust was very arrogant and unhelpful."

Paul Bates, chief executive of NHS Worcestershire, said: "Decisions around eligibility for continuing NHS care are extremely complex and difficult even though we have national guidance to assist us.

"The line between the need for healthcare and social care is a very thin one indeed, but the impact for the individual is the difference between free care and care which is means tested.

Each NHS trust has its own criteria for interpreting the Government's guidelines on who qualifies for free nursing care.

Andrew Harrop, Head of Policy for Age Concern and Help the Aged, said: "The system for deciding where the line is drawn between free NHS Continuing Care, and paid for social care has been a mess for years.

A spokesman refused to comment on the case, other than to say its role is to assess whether the strategic health authority's decision was based on following correct procedure, rather than the need of the patient.

And there we have it. A recurring theme of a an uncaring monstrosity filled with bureaucratic inertia, policies and procedures. This simply reminds me of trips to a Secretary of State office to renew a drivers license or to get a plate for a new car. Cumbersome and carried out by employees who could care less than to be there serving your needs. This is what Obama wants to foist on the U.S?