I enjoy highlighting absurdities in the British health care system because this is the sort of government intrusion the Democrats want to invite into the lives of Americans.
Smokers are to be denied operations on the Health Service unless they give up cigarettes for at least four weeks beforehand.Doctors will police the rule by ordering patients to take a blood test to prove they have not been smoking.
The ruling, authorised by Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt, comes after medical research conclusively showed smokers take longer to recover from surgery.
Note that this doesn't just mean surgery for ailments connected to smoking... this means all routine surgeries, like hip replacements and heart surgery. Congrats, smokers! You pay billions of pounds in cigarette taxes and then get sent to the back of the line for "free" public health care.
Americans shouldn't imagine that a nationalized health care system in our country would be any less intrusive!
Let's look at another issue deemed so important that it requires Continent-wide regulation:
The European Commission is considering a proposal to extend the forthcoming ban on smoking in enclosed public places to cover doorways. ...A spokesman for the Department of Health said the Health Act 2006, which covers the July 1 ban, contains reserve powers to extend the law to outside areas. Sports stadia, bus shelters and train platforms are already classed as enclosed public spaces under the Act and it would not have to go back to Parliament to be extended to doorways.
Leftists love this kind of micromanagement! A single Eureaucrat can control the behavior of hundreds of millions of people with the stroke of his pen. These kinds of articles are political pornography to American Democrats.
