“... but why would a medical doctor deny them “non-essential” surgery due to a generic chart?”
No idea where you are getting the idea that the new rules require blind guidance to BMI charts.
A guy I know had knee replacement surgery. He also is 100 lbs overweight. If you ask him, he will tell you he should have skipped the surgery and emphasized losing weight.
For “non-urgent surgery” - which the rule applies to - addressing CAUSE before surgery is just good sense. And it would be reasonable for an insurance company to use the same rule - ‘we won’t pay for elective surgery until the cause of the problem is dealt with first’.
Bottom line: Those who pay the bills should have a right to say what bills they pay.
.....”Bottom line:.... Those who pay the bills should have a right to say what bills they pay”.....
????? Makes no sense....Government run doesn’t inquire of taxpayers on what they pay or don’t pay, and it’s the citizens who pay tax’s.
From the Telegraph article on the new rules, from which the American Thinker draws it quotes:
But the new rules, drawn up by clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) in Hertfordshire, say that obese patients “will not get non-urgent surgery until they reduce their weight” at all, unless the circumstances are exceptional.
The criteria also mean smokers will only be referred for operations if they have stopped smoking for at least eight weeks, with such patients breathalysed before referral.
Delays and restrictions are already put on surgeries all the time, from managing existing infections to requiring home health assistance as part of the treatment plan. But as others have noted, there will be entire classes of people who will not fall afoul of the new rules.
I understand your point about who is paying for elective surgery, but in England - you pay no matter what, as part of taxes; and there is no list I see that defines which "elective" surgeries are to be considered non-essential.