Should we penalize smokers and the obese?

[Ernie S.]

Smokers should be forced to indulge their filthy habit hunkered down outside in the cold and rain

Fat people should be forced to wear bathing suits

And you should be forced to have a lobotomy.

 

[editec]

Do penalties for smokers and the obese make sense?

... Annual health care costs are roughly $96 billion for smokers and $147 billion for the obese, the government says. These costs accompany sometimes heroic attempts to prolong lives, including surgery, chemotherapy and other measures.

But despite these rescue attempts, smokers tend to die 10 years earlier on average, and the obese die five to 12 years prematurely, according to various researchers' estimates...

Some have said they don't like the ACA because they can no longer get their health care for free. Should the rest of us have to pay for smoker's and the obese higher health care costs? If not, how do we make them responsible for their own higher health care costs? Or, does their right to smoke and be fat negate our right to not have to pay those extra costs.

And, yes, the extra costs do fall to the entire society to pay.

Instead of worrying about women's health insurance paying for birth control, maybe its time we forced smokers and the obese to pay higher premiums.

Smokers will cost ACA less money per person than non smokers.

Just as now smokers (on average) cost less to medicade than non smokers.

Smokers tend to die fast and they also tend not to live long enough to deal with so many long term illnesses as non smokers.

 

[dblack]

And because we have so many more single-parent working households, or households where both parents work, the TIME factor has become huge. You can spend 15 hours a week purchasing and preparing healthy food during the week....or you can drive through McD's and not have to do dishes.

The stuff is deadly, but it's almost impossible for working parents to resist the draw.....

Yup, that's why I stopped working, to raise the kids safely and healthy.
I'm considering home schooling too, public schools are a disaster.

Racist!

 

[tjvh]

We should all get bar codes tattooed to our foreheads, that way the cashier can scan us and alert a Government agency every time we cannot control ourselves and buy a pint of ice cream. That is what progressives want.

 

[KissMy]

And because we have so many more single-parent working households, or households where both parents work, the TIME factor has become huge. You can spend 15 hours a week purchasing and preparing healthy food during the week....or you can drive through McD's and not have to do dishes.

The stuff is deadly, but it's almost impossible for working parents to resist the draw.....

Healthy food could be fast & easy at McDonald's. The thing is the tasty unhealthy is more desirable for eaters & profitable for sellers & costly for healthcare. After the EMTALA law the eaters & sellers could care less about the healthcare cost they no longer had to pay.

 

[dblack]

And because we have so many more single-parent working households, or households where both parents work, the TIME factor has become huge. You can spend 15 hours a week purchasing and preparing healthy food during the week....or you can drive through McD's and not have to do dishes.

The stuff is deadly, but it's almost impossible for working parents to resist the draw.....

Healthy food could be fast & easy at McDonald's. The thing is the tasty unhealthy is more desirable for eaters & profitable for sellers & costly for healthcare. After the EMTALA law the eaters & sellers could care less about the healthcare cost they no longer had to pay.

So, you're saying this problem could be solved by repealing EMTALA?

 

[Againsheila]

When I went to school, there were the four food groups. Times have changed. I would love for our local community college to offer a nutrition course along with recipes and cooking. I still cook things my mom used to make and that's just not appropriate anymore. Our society is so sedentary it's not funny. Kids don't play outside anymore, they just stay in with their computers. I can count the number of times I've seen kids outside playing in this neighborhood in the past year on one hand (excluding my next door neighbor who homeschools). The local baseball field where we used to go to play warm up is now locked. There is no where for the kids to go to play football or soccer unless they are with and organized group. It's sad really. When I grew up all the kids in the neighborhood knew each other, that's not the case anymore. Heck, I know most of my immediate neighbors but even some of them keep to themselves. The America I grew up in is gone.

Instead of taxing fat people (smokers are already taxed when they buy the cigarettes), how about encouraging more activities for people outside their homes? Stop locking the baseball fields? Make sure there are more parks and places for kids to play and encourage them to go there. When I was a kid, the zoo was free and we went their frequently as a family. Now it costs money even to enter the park where the zoo is, then you also pay to get into the zoo.

And of course, make lean meats cheaper and fresh fruits and vegetables cheaper and find a way for people on foodstamps to have to buy food they cook instead of premade sandwiches or frozen pizzas?

 

[Dragonlady]

Our bodies are biologically designed to store fats and energy for the lean periods that hunter gatherer tribes suffer through periodically. Our taste buds are designed to make those foods which will sustain us through the lean times, the most desireable. It's a survival of the species thing.

Our biology hasn't kept pace with the advancements of civilization. Hunting now means finding the nearest supermarket, and gathering involves taking your cart through check out. There are no periods where food is not plentiful or available, but our biology is still pointing us to foods which will sustain us through the famine.

Fast food joints are simply exploiting our innate biology and giving the people what they want.

 

[koshergrl]

And because we have so many more single-parent working households, or households where both parents work, the TIME factor has become huge. You can spend 15 hours a week purchasing and preparing healthy food during the week....or you can drive through McD's and not have to do dishes.

The stuff is deadly, but it's almost impossible for working parents to resist the draw.....

Healthy food could be fast & easy at McDonald's. The thing is the tasty unhealthy is more desirable for eaters & profitable for sellers & costly for healthcare. After the EMTALA law the eaters & sellers could care less about the healthcare cost they no longer had to pay.

And you nailed it...fresh and healthy is expensive and people don't like it. My kids came home from school starving last night...because they were served what sounded like was fajitas...with peppers, onions, tomatoes...they hate peppers, onions and raw tomatoes. They tossed their food, though it was perfectly reasonable food.

Of course they wouldn't have if it had been the only food available; we've just moved away from the entire mindset of "this is the meal, if you don't eat this, you have to wait for the next meal" that I grew up with. There was always butter and bread to fill up on...but if you didn't like dinner, there wasn't another dinner later, at Wendy's. Mom didn't rush to the kitchen to make grilled cheese sandwiches. It was eat dinner or go hungry. And kids sometimes do choose to go hungry; I can remember sitting at the table and eating just a bite or two of this or that..then eating bread and butter, drinking my milk and heading off to my room.

 

[Luddly Neddite]

We have more fat people today because in 1998 the standard for healthy weight was lowered. Overnight perfectly normal people became overweight.

That's what all fat people say.

That and "its glandular and I have big bones".

 

[Luddly Neddite]

Reading some of the posts ...

You knee jerk haters better be careful.

You're starting to sound like our First Lady.

 

[koshergrl]

We have more fat people today because in 1998 the standard for healthy weight was lowered. Overnight perfectly normal people became overweight.

That's what all fat people say.

That and "its glandular and I have big bones".

However if they were in a concentration camp setting, I promise you, those are the people who would survive. So obviously they are genetically superior.

 

[Antares]

You people do realize that today smoking and obesity is cause for massive rate ups?

 

[koshergrl]

Sure they are.

 

[koshergrl]

This is the problem when government gets involved in our lives. Now, through universal health care, the government is itching to tell us what we may do with our bodies.

That didn't take long.

What will the penalty be for disobedience, I wonder? Fines, initially. Then when that doesn't work, it's just another ploy to justify herding people into containment.

 

[Antares]

LOL.....they absolutely are.

The actuaries figured this out years ago, if you go to buy an individual policy and are a smoker and obese IF can be insured you will NOT want to pay for it.

Sure they are.

 

[koshergrl]

I don't want to pay for it now, dipshit.

 

[koshergrl]

It sounds to me like you morons are finding your sticking point too...

Eat the rates and be happy. You got what you wanted. Enjoy. You now belong to the insurance companies. And you facilitated being sold to them. Brilliant.

 

[Antares]

Yo mama must be so proud of your lack of class chile...

I don't want to pay for it now, dipshit.

 

[JakeStarkey]

Employers and insurance companies already penalize them.