In a controversial move, the head of the youth organisation of Germany's opposition Christian Democratic party has suggested that patients aged over 85 should not receive new hips or dentures in an attempt to reduce the country's already overstretched healthcare budget.

In doing so, 23 year old Philip Missfelder has reopened a public debate on the rationing of health care in Germany.

Earlier this summer a television report stirred emotions when two experts, Joachim Wiemeyer, theology professor from Bochum university, and Friedrich Breyer, economist from Konstanz University, had asked the government to abstain from operations in elderly patients older than 75. Their suggestion of rationing was publicly condemned …