First of all, the NHS is not socialized medicine because the government does not control the means of production. Second, you assert that British citizens are forced into the NHS against their will without evidence or authority. Third, if you honestly believe that the NHS, whatever its flaws, which few would deny, is a program used to “kill off innocent citizens,” then I’m not sure any discussion on the topic will be productive for you.

If you think that rationing care kills people, which is a possible albeit contestable proposition (because the cause of death in that case is not obvious), then it is hardly the case that we do not ration care considerably in the U.S. nonsytem as well. If rationing kills, it’s tough to argue with a straight face that we are any better than the UK, and much easier to argue that the U.S. nonsystem is far, far worse in that regard.

The NHS has a lot of problems, two of the major ones being the fact that it is underfunded, as Frank has noted here repeatedly, and the fact that it precludes its citizens from procuring additional out-of-pocket services as described above being another. There is certainly no rule that I am aware of that compels advocates of national health care to adopt the British model, lock, stock, and barrel. Advocates of national health services rarely point up the British model as a paragon for these and other reasons.

The question, stripped of your obfuscation, is only this: Are otherwise law-abiding and tax-paying Britons, forced by law into a socialized medicine regime against their will, not entitled to the promised benefits of said socialized medicine regime, independent of any other criteria? Yes or no?

If you answer “no,” then you believe in the sovereign right of government to renege on any contract its politicians and bureaucrats deem too pesky to honor — and, in this instance, kill off innocent citizens in the process.

Is that really what you advocate?

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“Without such rules, physicians could condition services to Medicare patients on the payment of additional charges that would undermine the programs’ efforts to provide reasonably-priced health care to all.”

And when physicians stop accepting Medicare patients altogether as the reimbursement rates drop too low, how exactly does that not “undermine the programs’ efforts to provide reasonably-priced health care to all”?