Losing the zip code lottery

Yorkshire, England resident Lesley Fletcher has been diagnosed with myopic macular degeneration, an eye disease that leads to certain blindness if left untreated.

Fortunately, a drug named Lucentis is available to treat the condition.

Unfortunately for Ms. Fletcher, she lives in the wrong zip code to receive that drug. Her local "National" Health Service Trust is declining to pay for her medicine, even though it is routinely paid for by trusts across the rest of Britain.

"Ms Fletcher was told by her consultant that although her home address is in West Yorkshire she actually came under the jurisdiction of North Yorkshire Primary Care Trust. Had she lived just two miles further into West Yorkshire it is likely she would have received funding for her treatment."

What kind of horrifying governmental insanity is that?

(By the way, the doctor who prescribed the medicine and Fletcher's own wish to stay among the sighted are left completely out of the equation, you will notice.)

The reason for her claim being denied by the local trust that purports to "serve" the area she happens to live in? Some pinhead bureaucrat (a drone who most likely has no medical background and is charged solely to reduce costs as much as possible) has apparently arbitrarily decided one of two things: either the drug is too expensive or that Ms. Fletcher is somehow less deserving of her sight-saving treatment than someone else in the trust is of their care, despite the fact that Ms Fletcher has dutifully paid into the fraudulent scheme her entire working life:

'"I’ve worked full-time since 15. I’ve never been out of work – even when I had my children – and now I work hard for the NHS. But it seems as soon as you need something back they let you down.'"

Ms. Fletcher further (correctly) points out that she is only 55 years old, and that should she be forced to quit working due to becoming blind, the cost of lifetime disability benefits for her would surpass the cost of the drug treatment in a matter of weeks. That doesn't seem to matter, though. What the government says goes over there, despite the utter ludicrousness of the situation.

This sad story encapsulates what will routinely happen on a large scale in this country, should the Messiah manage to ram through his dream scheme for health "care" for "all" Americans.

Are you prepared to deal with a similar maddening situation when it happens to yourself and your family?