Labour and health: Dying for equality

It seems that the Labour Party believes it is better for someone to die in an equal society than to live in an unequal one.

That, at any rate, is the only moral you can draw from the case of Colette Mills:

Colette Mills, a former nurse, has been told that if she attempts to top up her treatment privately, she will have to foot the entire £10,000 bill for her drugs and care. The bizarre threat stems from the refusal by the government to let patients pay for additional drugs that are not prescribed on the NHS.

Ministers say it is unfair on patients who cannot afford such top-up drugs and that it will create a two-tier NHS. It is thought thousands of patients suffer as a result of the policy.

There has always been a side of Labour that loves the NHS because it makes people queue and wait. If the wealthy get away with having a better life for most of the time, socialists can at least take their revenge on them when they are ill.

Lord Paget - who as Reggie Paget was Labour MP for Northampton - used to go out hunting with the Fernie, fall and break something, and then sit in the waiting room at the Market Harborough surgery the following morning, clutching his numbered ticket and waiting his turn with everyone else.

There is something admirable about that as a choice, but it less admirable when Labour forces that choice upon other people.

Of course Colette Mills should be allowed to use her money to pay for extra drugs. What possible better use could there be for it?