Obamacare-along with radical environmentalism–are ultimately about power and government grabbing control over the way we live our personal lives. A case in point tonight out of Sweden, where the head of the Swedish Welfare Board wants doctors to make patients quit smoking as a condition of receiving surgery. From the story:
Surgeons should be able to demand that a patient refrains from smoking in the period before and after an operation, the director-general of the Swedish Welfare Board argued on Friday. The requirement should be just as natural as requiring weight loss or nil by mouth, Lars-Erik Holm argued to the Svenska Dagbladet newspaper in regard to new guidelines which the Welfare Board plans to issue next year. The director-general added that the recommendation was to be made on the proviso that anti-smoking help was made available to the patient.
Holm cited the orthopaedic clinic at Norrland University Hospital in Umeå in northern Sweden as a positive example. The hospital introduce a smoking ban as a condition for all surgery six months ago. The hospital stipulates that a patient should not smoke in the two months before and after a surgical procedure.
Sure, patients do better if they quit smoking. But refusing treatment unless the patient does as he is told? So much for freedom. What about emergencies?
When asked how the demand for abstinence from smoking conforms with the equal rights of the patient to care, Holm responded that in emergency cases even smokers would be operated on.
Big of them. Doctors have the right and duty to recommend that we live more healthy lifestyles, whether we need treatment or not. But they and the government should never be allowed to refuse needed care to patients because they have a bad habit.
The moral of the story is simple: Government health care equals government control over your life. It seems undeniable to me.
November 28th, 2009 | 4:24 am
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Wesley J. Smith and Free Iran!, Greg Felix. Greg Felix said: Obamacare: Swedes Say No Surgery Unless You Quit Smoking …: Sure, patients do better if they quit smoking. Bu.. http://bit.ly/80lkRu [...]
November 28th, 2009 | 10:15 am
So, Wesley, if one might ask, what’s the point you’re trying to make here? That doctors shouldn’t be able to set the conditions under which they’ll perform surgery (or not perform it)? That a health care provider’s “conscience” should never be an insurmountable impediment to those actions which you favor, but should otherwise be considered a lame excuse? What has become of individual choice based on conscience, which has heretofore mattered so much to you?
The argument that doctors and government should NEVER “be allowed to refuse needed care to patients because they have a bad habit” is a sword that cuts both ways. For the sake of consistency, would you then require pharmacists to supply abortifacients such as Plan B to women who had the “bad habit” of having unprotected sex, despite their conscientious objections.
Then too, there’s the matter of “care” being limited by the adjective “needed.” What constitutes “needed care?” For example, does it include only medical procedures necessary to maintain the patient’s life and/or restore his health, and exclude elective surgery of any kind? What about cosmetic surgery such as post-mastectomy breast reconstruction? Do you mean any care which the patient or the doctor deems necessary? Or the pharmacist? Or the patient’s bishop? Or you?
For someone who’s deeply troubled by the idea of government intervention in health care, you seem to have little difficulty with the idea of some abstract, unnamed entity “never allowing” doctors to follow the dictates of their consciences. How do you explain this?
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
November 28th, 2009 at 11:30 am
As usual, you mix apples and oranges. Read my FT piece and you will see that in non elective situations, it should be the PROCEDURE and not the PATIENT that is objectionable. Allowing a doctor to refuse needed surgery because a patient smokes, is akin to refusing to help an AIDS patient because he is gay.
November 28th, 2009 | 12:10 pm
Sorry, Wesley, but this isn’t an “apples and oranges” matter. One either advocates government’s trumping conscience rights, or one doesn’t. To permit it under some circumstances and forbid it under others, as one’s agenda dictates, makes little sense. It’s rather like saying someone’s “a little bit pregnant.”
I should mention that what goes on in Sweden, arguably one of the most “socialized” Western countries, hardly relates to any health-care improvement proposal that’s been put forward by our government. To relate it to “Obamacare” is not only blatantly propagandistic, but dishonest.
Really, Wesley, your “take” on things is beginning to sound like Steve Ertelt’s.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
November 28th, 2009 at 12:25 pm
Not so. It’s called NUANCE. I thought liberals believed in nuance. And it is not propaganda. If Obamacare happens, we too will have centralized planning over the delivery of health care. The Swedish, Canadian, UK examples of what evolves out of that is quite pertinent to our current national debate.
November 28th, 2009 | 9:18 pm
[...] The Swedish are saying “No Surgery” unless you quit smoking. Is this a good policy? Secondhand Smoke gives his reaction on this. [READ HERE] [...]
December 1st, 2009 | 11:17 pm
WJS: “Government health care equals government control over your life. It seems undeniable to me.”
There is an important line between generalization and hyperbole and I’m afraid you’ve hopped it once again, Wesley.
I may have missed it (and I trust you will correct this potential error) but I’ve not seen you advocate for the privatization of Medicare, Medicaid, or the VA health care system. By your formula, how can these huge gov’t-run entities be so less onerous and controlling as to escape similar condemnation?
And please address on a general level how private, for-profit health care can simultaneously exert less control over our lives and deliver greater and more altruistic medical care.
December 3rd, 2009 | 9:48 am
Although I can understand how most doctors would find the situation frustrating (much like I shake my head over singers who smoke), how is refusing to operate on a smoker a matter of conscience? Can we draw any distinction between something inherently immoral and something merely unhealthy?
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
December 3rd, 2009 at 10:10 am
I think the way to do that is to first, see whether it is the PROCEDURE or the PATIENT that is objectionable. If the surgery is fine, but not the patient, I think you should not be allowed to deny a needed procedure. (I think purely voluntary procedures should be able to be denied.) If the procedure itself, e.g. assisted suicide, is objectionable regardless of the patient, you should be allowed to deny unless it will cost life or serious health patient, e.g. terminating an ectopic pregnancy.
December 16th, 2009 | 3:21 pm
Imagine having to wait two months to have your appendix removed!!
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