Rationing as the Democrats solution to health care costs

They are willing to spend huge amounts of money on so many things, but they won't let people voluntarily spend their own money. The WSJ has this:

Try to follow this logic: Last week the Medicare trustees reported that the program has an "unfunded liability" of nearly $38 trillion -- which is the amount of benefits promised but not covered by taxes over the next 75 years. So Democrats have decided that the way to close this gap is to create a new "universal" health insurance entitlement for the middle class.

Such thinking may be a non sequitur, but it will have drastic effects on the health care of all Americans -- and as it happens, this future is playing out in miniature in Medicare right now. Desperate to prevent medical costs from engulfing the federal budget, the program's central planners decided last week to deny payment for a new version of one of life's most unpleasant routine procedures, the colonoscopy. This is a preview of how health care will be rationed when Democrats get their way.

At issue are "virtual colonoscopies," or CT scans of the abdomen. Colon cancer is the second leading cause of U.S. cancer death but one of the most preventable. Found early, the cure rate is 93%, but only 8% at later stages. Virtual colonoscopies are likely to boost screenings because they are quicker, more comfortable and significantly cheaper than the standard "optical" procedure, which involves anesthesia and threading an endoscope through the lower intestine. . . . .

Look at the debate in the UK with their government health care. The London Times on May 26, 2008 had this piece:

Can science save us from the NHS?
New antibiotics might help to fight hospital infections; but that would cost us money...
Terence Kealey
Last Thursday the Office for National Statistics confirmed that more than 20 patients a day now die from the superbug infections, MRSA and C difficile.

NHS practice has been poor. MRSA (methicillin-resistant staphylococcal aureus) is a bacterium that many people carry, safely, in their noses. Yet when people are weakened by sickness, MRSA can invade the bloodstream and kill. In Scandinavia, Holland and Harley Street (three places where MRSA is rare) carriers are screened and treated before being admitted to the wards, but the NHS has been slow in following suit.

Clostridium difficile is another bacterium that many people carry safely (in their intestines), but when hospital toilets are poorly cleaned, when wards are overcrowded, or when people fail to wash their hands, patients will acquire C difficile from each other and, in their weakened state, die of diarrhoea. . . . .