Secondhand Smoke: Brave New Britain: Here Comes Health Care Rationing

re: "...Well, now there's a slippery slope. What some might say is a bad quality of life, others might say is perfectly acceptable, thank you very much for your opinion. Moreover, in the end, such approaches reward the politically powerful with complete coverage while denying those on the outskirts. We saw this in Oregon when it created its Medicaid rationing scheme that omits some life-sustaining or curative approaches for the terminally ill. The thing is: When first conceived, late stage AIDS patients were to be listed among those rationed out. But the politically potent AIDS community engaged and that exclusion was, shall we say, remedied. / I don't blame AIDS activists, but other disease communities didn't have the same clout, the point being that if you want to increase the politicization of medicine and turn MS patients against cancer patients, against people with profound cognitive or developmental disabilities, against people with Alzheimer's--health care rationing based on quality of life is the way to do it. / Let's learn from the UK and find a better way."