There is an informative new post over at Bayou Renaissance Man that discusses the trend among socialist and near socialist societies to control completely the right to and payment for healthcare, and the moral dilemma of how to pay for expensive end of life care.  Now, it appears, the same trend is accelerating for other expensive forms of care, such as with very ill children.   The problem for all of us is when the government decides they don't want to pay for any further care, and simply elects to deprive the unfortunate citizen of food, water and medicine so they die.

As Pope John Paul said, it's the culture of death, and it appears to be ascendant.

From the article:

Just last month, it was revealed that the UK's National Health Service has been putting sick children on the so-called Liverpool Care Pathway, which - in so many words - legally allows for medical care to be withheld from the very ill, and for them to be starved to death, with or without their consent.  Previously the Pathway had been applied only to the elderly, or to terminally ill adults.

Today we find these headlines in the news:

• Belgium looks at euthanasia for minors, Alzheimer's sufferers
• Report recommends France legalize 'accelerated deaths'

Just last weekend, in our most recent 'Around The Blogs' feature, we linked to Mad Medic's article about the so-called 'Death Panels' allegedly to be implemented in terms of Obamacare.  They, too, are an ethical and moral nightmare, but if you leave those considerations out of the picture, they make economic sense.

Put all these reports and developments together, and I submit that the pattern feared around the world for so long is emerging from the shadows and becoming more and more clear.  It's no longer a suspicion - it's reality.  When governments find the cost of health care growing too great, they're going to economize in every way possible.  Since critically or terminally ill patients typically cost a great deal more to treat than those with lesser illnesses or injuries, it makes economic and utilitarian sense for governments to kill off the former as quickly as possible, so as to free up more funds to care for the latter.  Furthermore, since the future economic productivity of the latter is probably greater than that of the former, governments can get more tax revenue out of them, and for longer, than out of the former group.  Again, money talks.

For those of us approaching late middle to old age in the USA and the other countries mentioned, it's a grim prospect.  Our lives will almost certainly be regulated - and possibly ended without our consent - according to how much we'll potentially cost the government in health care, balanced against how much we can potentially offer in future tax revenues.  (However, a recent push to extend the estate tax may make it more economically advantageous to kill the rich anyway!)