More socialized medicine follies

This time it's Australia, from Science Daily:

Should Smokers Be Refused Surgery?
Last year a primary care trust announced it would take smokers off waiting lists for surgery in an attempt to contain costs. In this week's British Medical Journal, two experts go head to head over whether smokers should be refused surgery.

Denying operations is justified for specific conditions, argues Professor Matthew Peters from the Concord Repatriation General Hospital in Australia.

Professor Peters says that smoking up to the time of any surgery increases cardiac and pulmonary complications, impairs tissue healing, and is associated with more infections.

These effects increase the costs of care and also mean less opportunity to treat other patients, he writes. In healthcare systems with finite resources, preferring non-smokers over smokers for a limited number of procedures will therefore deliver greater clinical benefit to individuals and the community.

The obvious problem here is that once you start targeting smokers, where do you stop. This is the classic "nose of the camel under the tent flap" -- what is next? Drinkers? People over 60? The homeless? Mentally Ill? Eugenics is a nasty thing...