When people want to demonize single payer systems, they always wind up going after rationing, and more often than you’d think with hip replacements. Here’s Rep. Todd Akin (R) on the House floor yesterday:
“I just hit 62, and I was just reading that in Canada [if] I got a bad hip I wouldn’t be able to get that hip replacement that [Rep. Dan Lungren] got, because I’m too old! I’m an old geezer now and it’s not worth a government bureaucrat to pay me to get my hip fixed.”
Sigh. This has been debunked so often, it’s tiring. But here:
“At least 63 percent of hip replacements performed in Canada last year…were on patients age 65 or older.” In 2006-2007, an additional 1,577 hip replacement surgeries were performed in Canada on patients over 85.
It’s not true. They don’t deny hip replacements to the elderly. But there’s more.
Do you know who gets most of the hip replacements in the United States? The elderly.
Do you know who pays for care for the elderly in the United States? Medicare.
Do you know what Medicare is? A single-payer system.
