Screw Death Panels: Try Drunk Panels!

2009 ends with no response from Sarah Palin or anyone else to my challenge to show an example of an honest-to-God government death panel in any country with universal health care.

The British certainly haven't thrown Grandma under the bus. But a Tory British think tank recommends their National Health Service throw drunks under the bus... or at least charge them for being idiots:

Excessive drinking over New Year's Eve could cost Britain's National Health Service as much as 23 million pounds, according to a report on Thursday which recommends drunks be charged a hospital admission fee of 532 pounds ($845.9).

"Alcohol misuse in Britain is at a level where it constitutes a public health epidemic," said the report by the right-leaning Policy Exchange think-tank.

Direct costs to the state-funded NHS, which provides free health care for Britons, are nearly 3 billion a year, with hospital admissions for alcohol intoxication doubling in a decade, it added [Stephen Addison, "New Year Drunks Should Pay for Hospital Care," Reuters via Yahoo News, 2009.12.31].

Happy New Year! Pass the 7-Up.