We have all heard the fears over “death panels” being an unpleasant reality to the Affordable Care Act; many will dismiss this fear as being unrealistic simply based on the fact that this is America. They don’t feel that in our civilized nation this could ever be a reality. Healthcare in the UK is giving fuel to the fire of our fears by offering their doctors bonuses now to place patients on death panels, in order to free up beds in their hospitals. The doctors are being offered a mere 50 pounds for each person that they place on the lists. At such a small price, is there any question the value that life is being given nowadays?

The UK is a nation most comparable to our own, if the healthcare given to their citizens is so similar to the end goal of Obamacare to bring us in to a single payer system, then it would seem the fears over death panels here in America are a very real possibility. Harry Reid praised Obamacare as an absolute step towards a single-payer system.

When I speak to conservatives about health care policy, I’m often asked the question: “Do you think that Obamacare is secretly a step toward single-payer health care?” I always explain that, while progressives may want single-payer, I don’t think that Obamacare is deliberately designed to bring about that outcome. Well, yesterday on PBS’ Nevada Week In Review, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) was asked whether his goal was to move Obamacare to a single-payer system. His answer? “Yes, yes. Absolutely, yes.”~ Forbes 2013

UK doctors are being bonused to draw up “end of life advanced care plans”, and place patients onto lists when the doctor’s opinion is that the patient will die within the year.

The payments in question apparently have the intention of keeping NHS costs as low as possible.

According to documents seen by the Daily Mail on Sunday, a “key objective” of the project – which underwent a trial period in England’s east – was “to shift the place of death” away from hospitals, thus“reducing …healthcare costs.”

“I think it’s got everything to do with money, with the cost of a hospital bed being £200 a day,” Dr Anthony Cole, acting chairman of the Medical Ethics Alliance, told the paper. He stated his belief that its advocates were mired in financial concerns, and suggested that it may result in insufficient medical care in a patient’s final days.

The ‘Yellow Folder’ pilot scheme was trialed in 41 medical practices in Ipswich and East Suffolk, and lasted from July 2011 until last month. The doctors received payment for every care home patient they successfully signed up to an end of life plan. Ipswich and East Suffolk Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), which ran the scheme, would not tell the paper how much money it allocated for bonuses.~ RT News 2013

With this example in front of us coming from a nation so close to our own , should we not at least be a bit more concerned with the direction of our own healthcare here at home?