Posted on 01/26/2013 12:59:43 PM PST by Vince Ferrer
NEW YORK (AP) -- Faced with the high cost of caring for smokers and overeaters, experts say society must grapple with a blunt question: Instead of trying to penalize them and change their ways, why not just let these health sinners die?
(Excerpt) Read more at hosted.ap.org ...
"Your freedom is likely to be someone else's harm," said Daniel Callahan, senior research scholar at a bioethics think-tank, the Hastings Center.
"When you eat yourself to death, you're pretty much just harming yourself," he said.
But that viewpoint doesn't factor in the burden to everyone else of paying for the diabetes care, heart surgeries and other medical expenses incurred by obese people, noted John Cawley, a health economist at Cornell University.
They own us as property now through health care, we have very few rights left. And yes, it was intentional from the beginning.
Why of course... it was always a “control the world” scheme, not just keeping it civilized. Nannies demand to be paid.
An alternative proposal that would make leftists lose their minds:
“The Medical Care Provider And Patient Freedom Act”
1. If a medical care provider does not accept Medicare or Medicaid patients or insurance payments for medical services, they are exempt from Obamacare and HIPPA. This is an Opt Out, with no penalties for either Opting Out or in future joining the system if they so choose.
2. If a patient decides that they exclusively want to use medical services from a provider who has Opted Out of Obamacare, Medicare, Medicaid, and insurance payments for medical care, they may also OPT OUT, and will be exempt from any fines, penalties, or taxation to support these programs. Likewise they will be removed from and no longer participate in all provisions of HIPPA or any other government medical records or statistics information processing or retention system, unless they OPT IN.
3. Physicians and patients who have Opted Out of these systems will no longer have any personal or medical information shared with public or private entities, unless it is essential to their medical care and done with exact permissions for each and every use.
And homos spreading aids? They included in this concept?
How do you suppose they'll respond when we apply this question to AIDS?
Of course thy will use all sorts of vituperation against the questioner but, do they actually plan to stay in power forever?
And THAT statement doesn't factor in the insured paying their own insurance.
I have chronic bronchitis (so they say .. actually, I think I have preliminary emphasema from 45 plus years of smoking before quitting about a year ago) and I can treat myself OTC at the moment.
I have cancer care insurance through an NRA authorized 3rd party and a life policy for burial expenses, all coming out of my SS which doesn't leave much, but my needs are few.
How many people actually GET more than outpatient care if they're welfare recipients?
Isn't THAT what this cornball economist is saying?
How can WE ALL be paying ... except it's welfare insurance ?
Is he saying a fat man in need of heart surgery, on welfare GETS that new heart, or lung, or kidney or bypass or whatever ?
If so, THAT'S the travesty of welfare.
Food, housing, clothing and kids insurance is MORE than enough.
Well why don’t these liberal controllers apply that same logic to illegals? I am tired of the lie that they contribute more than they take, ever been in a emergency room, they use it as their normal Doctors office. I once waited in a ER for close to two hours with a severe laceration, it took twenty seven stitches, while they kept taking in the undocumented( and yes I know they were, I was close enough to the window were they filled out the forms)with a little cough or such. I finally had to go up to nurse and threaten to remove the bandages I had put on and bleed all over the ER. I have seen Trauma center after trauma center closed in hospitals because they can’t recoup the cost for services from the illegals.
In their infinite hypocrisy, the government has somehow decided that hate speech is O.K. when “shaming” obese people? I read that they are thinking of a “shaming” campaign against the overweight? Aren’t they also participating in an “anti-bullying” campaign? Anyone else see the hypocrisy here? Could they really be THAT stupid?
Of course they make sense.... in a public healthcare system. But who the hell wants one of those? The great thing about having private healthcare, is you’re free to do what you want, but in the end, you have to pay for it, not someone else.
This is why private industry succeeds, public industry sucks. You can only spend o much of other people’s money.
It’s all part if the plan. The food pyramid was invented to make people die a lot younger. They want control, plain and simple.
The liberals have not succeeded in extirpating those horrid moralizers at all. They’ve simply changed what’s being preached and to whom.
Why don’t these people just mind their own f’n business?
That said, their argument is that they have a right to regulate your behavior based on economic impact to the state. IMHO, that is the essence of fascism. It should be made clear to these clowns that whipping too many people into fighting condition might well be hazardous to their own health.
Illegals are a huge part of the problem. They (along with regular citizens without insurance) use the emergency room for any and all maladies. Those two groups never pay for the services.
That’s the Constitutional right they're replacing the First and Second Amendments with.
Didn’t you get the memo?
There does seem to be a lot of confusion about diet and such. I’m skeptical of magic bullets, and the pyramid might be good for vitamins and minerals but it is not so great for keeping weight reasonable.
But being on the pudgy side myself and having gone back to a particular dieting organization which worked for me before but then I left it for twenty years, they’ve found that a surprisingly reasonable list of foods will do for self-regulated (eat all you need) diets. Extra-lean meats, ANY fruit, cooked cereal, reduced-calorie breads, any vegetable except those that are extremely fatty like olives or avocado, eggs, any nonfat dairy product, whole-grain pastas... molto assai, as they would put it in musical terms. (Juices and sugar don’t get included in that list unfortunately.) AND, reasonable amounts of non fatty condiments like ketchup, mustard, spices etc., AND about 300 calories a day worth of any miscellany you want that’s not on the list (or in the difference between a fatty/sugary product and its nonfat nonsugar counterpart). Not bad huh.
I think a lot of modern foods are richer than they need to be in quantities they are commonly consumed in. Satisfy your pangs with fruit and watch the rest, and you’ll be eating more healthily.
"-Smoke more than the rich, and have higher obesity rates."
Poor people do all kinds of things that are not in their best interests. That's a large part of the reason that they are poor.
Many, if not all private insurance companies charge a higher rate for people that smoke. These private insurance companies have the data to back up their position that smokers carry a higher health risk which costs more.
The liberals have not succeeded in extirpating those horrid moralizers at all. They’ve simply changed what’s being preached and to whom.
I am REALLY looking forward to seeing how they defend their stance on this one! I how that Candy Crowley does the interview with,perhaps Chris Christie sitting next to her. Now THAT would be interesting!
It does make sense ... but only if it also makes sense to penalize:
Alcohol drinkers
Drug users
People who engage in risky sex practices
Thrillseekers and extreme sports enthusiasts
People who travel to foreign countries rife with diseases eradicated in the West
Reckless drivers
Motorcycle drivers and cyclists who don’t wear helmets
Etc.
____
But you know it will only be smokers and overweigh people.
Let me qualify “any fruit” to mean fresh or cooked, and if canned then in juice or water with any juice excluded (it can be made part of the miscellaneous allowance)... but the dried stuff is too concentrated to work. The water content of the fruit matters greatly in the fruit equation.
The nannies will probably look for more. Their hunger for power never gets sated.
Taking care of them shouldn’t be forced on me.
Likewise, I should not force healthier living on them.
If only we had a free country, this would be a non-issue.
Government needs to treat people the same. Insurance companies and employers don’t have to, because it affects them. I think leftists and illegals and such should be penalized too, they really hurt this country. :p
Or, would Michael Moore willingly pay a fat-tax? I don’t care if he is a zillionaire who can purchase all the concierge care he likes and probably will, he’s now a burden on Obamacare!!
Indeed... it used to be some commonly agreed idea of what God wanted was enough to keep low level misbehavior in check. For example, if you got extraordinarily too fat you’d likely be looked at as a glutton, even though there was not a single law banning gluttony.
What about active Homosexuals. They are by far the most susceptible to several types of expensive diseases, not to mention massive psychological problems.
Shouldn’t we just allow the unhealthy sodomites die?
If homos can be audacious why can’t fatties be audacious too? Pro-choice in corpulence! It’s the only way to go!
The obese may be among the few survivors of the coming progressive famines.
This was predicted in the sixties before medicare was passed. The’ll use this to bully people and deny them healthcare but all the while they will still be denying healthcare to some because they are older and the real reason is that controlling all healthcare they can get to work on their social security problem. With all the advancements made in healthcare we are now about to see a decrease in our lifespan.
If it’s a sum of money mandated by government...Federal,state of local,,,it’s a *tax*,damn it!
Of course not, that would not only be discrimination but would cause hurt feelings.
Given the fact that alcoholics and meth addicts are coddled as having a disability, punishing the obese and nicotine addicts makes absolutely no sense at all. The liberal mind is really capable of embracing diametrically opposed and mutually exclusive notions at the same time. People are either accountable for a weakness in their character or they’re not. Picking and choosing isn’t fair.
Susan B. Anthony’s father was in the insurance racket.
But that is the premise of socialism.....favoring party members in good standing while punishing those who are not in good standing.
All these decisions about winners and losers comes down to who will provide a base of power for the elite. If it seems unfair, you can do nothing about it because you have no power.
Do penalties for smokers and the obese make cents?
People better watch out about which groups they impose penatlies and taxes on or they might find themselves in the next such group.
Like Randy Newmann said,
Fat people got no reason to live
“These private insurance companies have the data to back up their position that smokers carry a higher health risk which costs more.”
Let’s include data that shows that leftists are also a health risk to people. Leftists inflicted democide on the world in the 20th century that murdered 100 million people. Those same leftists have murdered 50 million babies in the US. Let’s start a leftist control program that eliminates the democrat party.
Ok.
So maybe, just maybe it was short people.
But have you ever sat in coach on a flight from West Palm Beach to Vegas with a real FAT lady with bad cologne next to ya??
Nanny State PING!
Nanny State PING!
When we penalize aids sufferers then we can talk.
But not until then.
Or, would Michael Moore willingly pay a fat-tax? I don’t care if he is a zillionaire who can purchase all the concierge care he likes and probably will, he’s now a burden on Obamacare!!
You are really on the right track! ...and, congratulations for being the first one to “shame” the most deserving of all liberals (badly in need of shaming). I can’t believe you beat me to it!!!!
They can’t [logically] have it both ways. They demand to force you into the system against your will, then they want to use the fact that you’re in the system to dictate your behavior. I’d STILL be OK with that (them choosing behaviors they wouldn’t insure) so long as the severance between you and the program is complete — you’re not eligible for benefits but you’re also exempt from paying IN on the cost/premium side. If they want to decide on a case by case basis whom to cover that’s fine, but they don’t get to withhold coverage and still expect you to pay for it.
Good think I thought it was stupid and ignored it, then!
But they don't GET to make that argument because the vast majority of Americans didn't want that and they forced ward of the state for medical care status upon us anyway. It was their idea, let them deal with the problems.
And of course it occurs to them to try to fix the SS problem, one caused by excessive government meddling and collectivism, with......government meddling and collectivism, instead of abolishing same. Oh, for an honest politician who tried first to find a way to solve a problem by returning freedom to the proper people rather than by stealing even more. D'oh!!
I was referring to the what the democrats see as the SS problem, we’re living too long.
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