Yes, the NHS Must Treat Fat Folk

A truly repellent piece by Cristina Odone in the Telegraph in which she argues for NHS-rationing by liefestyle and wealth. That’s not quite how she puts it, for sure, but her suggestion that (middle-class) pensioners are losing out to (lower-class) fat people and that something should be bloody done about this is the kind of classist call for healthcare rationing that well, let her make her case herself…

[A]ge comes to us all, and is not the result of  lifestyle choices. There are plenty of conditions, though, that are the direct result of bad habits, poor diet, and the wrong choices [Sic]. These conditions range from obesity and diabetes to smoking-related diseases like emphesema. If a 20-stone, 30-something woman comes into hospital with a bad diabetic attack, does she deserve to be at the front of the queue or the back? She has chosen to stuff her face with Mars bars and Coke, and is now suffering the consequences of her choice.