Twins banned in Britain

Reducing the usefulness of what you do makes sense only to socialists. Post below lifted from Don Surber. See the original for links

Brits save money, improve health stats. England will ban test tube twins and triplets. Instead, mothers using IVF will be given only one embryo at a time to se if it leads to pregnancy, the London Daily Mail reported. This will save the National Health Service money - and we all know the purpose of the NHS is to save money, not patients. As a bonus, this will make the health statistics look better. Twins and triplets cost more to birth and have a greater chance of dying, thus increasing the infant mortality rate.

The downside is this sucks if you want to have children. "Under plans that could spell heartache for thousands of childless couples, regulators want to cap the number of multiple births," the London Daily Mail reported.

It is estimated that if all IVF children were single births, 126 fewer babies would die each year. Critics claim, however, that limiting the number of embryos would reduce the chances of a successful pregnancy and make fertility treatment even more costly for desperate couples. Health Service funding usually covers just one cycle of treatment, explaining why three out of four couples pay thousands to go private - and have more embryos implanted.

This drew complaints from Keith Reed, chief executive of the Twins and Multiple Births Association. "If they carry through their plans, then they could shatter the dreams of thousands of patients," Reed said.

But when you run a monopoly, who cares about unsatisfied customers, right? Government-run health care is a lot like government cheese.