In one form or another, that's been going on for as long as Professional Health Care has existed. Have you ever cared for a terminally ill loved one? The TV version is where the doctors tell the patient that there's nothing that can be done, that it's time to get one's affairs in order and go home to die, under the loving care of Mucus Welby, MD. The end of the house call was the end of that scenario. The reality is that the doctor simply stops seeing the patient. No more appointments. Then, a social worker shows up with a business card for the local hospice care facility. From that point on, the chances of even getting the patient past the emergency room doors of a hospital are practically nil. Health insurance very conveniently pays for hospice care.
If we ever get to Soylent Green and "Deathing Centers" like the one Edward G. Robinson checked into in the movie (his last film btw, he knew he was terminally ill during filming), it will be the doing of the Anointed do-gooders. It won't be via some geometrical Malthusian max point where healthcare supply can't keep up with demand. Everybody who has ever waved that boogeyman in any free market economic argument has been wrong.
The hidden assumption in the idea that supply will increase to meet demand is that the people doing the demanding have money to pay. It is not true that supply rises to meet the demand of people who have no money, or insufficient money.
Someone who "demands" a $3 million medical procedure, who does not have $3 million dollars, does not constitute a "demand" that the supply will rise to meet.
The issue here is that the government has set out to take the $3 million from other people, and will then offer to pay for the procedure. This only works so long as the government does not require 60, 70, or 80 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product in order to pay for all the procedures being demanded. As medical technology improves and the number of retirees increases, we could, in theory, keep lots of people around for a very long time, if only we tax everyone into poverty. I don't think people will accept that. So, some of the people who want the procedures, and could benefit from them, will die instead. Who does the picking-and-choosing is going to be an issue. If you think it will left up to individual MD's, you haven't factored in the lawyers.
He was always too snotty for me.