It is always annoying to see the grandiose promises of those advocating a single-payer system for the U.S.:

There is a myth that, with national health insurance, the government will be making the medical decisions. But in a publicly-financed, universal health care system medical decisions are left to the patient and doctor, as they should be. This is true even in the countries like the UK and Spain that have socialized medicine.

Thus, you have to like how reality always clashes with the “theories” of social reformers:

Smokers are to be denied operations on the Health Service [in Great Britain] unless they give up cigarettes for at least four weeks beforehand.

Doctors will police the rule by ordering patients to take a blood test to prove they have not been smoking.

The ruling, authorised by Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt, comes after medical research conclusively showed smokers take longer to recover from surgery.

Yup, medical decisions left to the doctor and patient…as long as the patient obeys the dictates of the state.