Posted on 04/29/2012 7:06:05 AM PDT by John W
A majority of doctors in a United Kingdom survey supported measures to deny non-emergency medical services to smokers and the obese, The Observer newspaper reported Sunday.
Although the survey by the networking website doctors.net.uk was a self-selecting poll, the site's chief executive called the response "a tectonic shift" for the profession.
The results feed into a British debate about "lifestyle rationing" by the National Health Service, the Observer reported.
(Excerpt) Read more at vitals.msnbc.msn.com ...
We should be more like Europe. What could go wrong?
Whaaa?
Besides the obvious - doesn’t denying early care just create bigger expenses in the long run? Isn’t that what “they” say?
Interesting... Perhaps the Police and Firefighters and other professionals should decide to withhold their services from these “doctors”.
What about denying costly medical treatment to homosexuals with AIDS?
Or just to homosexuals in general because of their high risk sexual proclivities?
If smokers and fat people are at risk so are homos.
Even if it is help with smoking cessation or weight loss? It isn’t healthy people who need a doctor, but those who are sick.
Honestly this is all just an inevitable consequence of people being able to make health decisions with other having the pay for the results. Something has to give.
After all, if you are healthy you are healthy ~ and subjecting you to extensive testing and evaluation doesn't change that, nor do they find anything about which you should be concerned.
Knowing that the doctors are simply reporting the obvious ~ quit treating healthy people who are overweight or who smoke. There's nothing to be gained until they actually get sick.
Maybe the doctors will have to get a part-time job at Walmart or McDonald's to help keep the lifestyles they have become accustomed to.
This is why I have never told any of my doctors that I am a smoker. It will come to this.
. Pretty much what I believe. I'm sick and tired of paying higher insurance premiums to fatties who eat themselves into the ground. I have a client, 51-52 years old who needs a hip transplant because he weighs 325+ lbs and he wore out his hips.
Smokers and obese are the 2 highest drivers of our out of control health care cost. Record Type 2 diabetes, joint problems, HBP, sleep apnea, om and on related to obesity.
I don't want the gov't to get involved but the private sector to clamp down with these people with incentives to control their diet and weight.
Smokers cost the medical industry less than nonsmokers. They don’t live as long.
Love it.
Along with a whole lot of other 'obese' people the doctors might need service from.
Since I am a fat smoker the doctor will just have to kill me.
This is euthanasia by omission rather than commission.
‘Nuff said.......
Maybe you should learn how to properly route payments and pay the premiums to your insurance provider instead.
No, it is not. Every insurance carrier out there have been pushing for preventive care for at least the last 10 years. I work for a Fort500 company and the health insurance carrier is constantly sending us mailers at home to remind us to go in for physicals and such.
They don’t mean early care by doctors, they mean early care for yourself. They ( doctors) don’t think that people who smoke or are obese, deserve to live.
Some insurance doesn’t cover it anyway. A friend of mine was denied coverage for knee surgery because she is obese.
Oh, I know, no one would do that. They would spend the savings on donuts.
Sorry, I lost my head for a moment.
In the U.K., smokers and the obese pay taxes at the same rate as everybody else to support the NHS. If they were not taxed, they would use those moneys to fund their own treatment for conditions they had imposed upon themselves. How fair is it then, for the government to take their money and deny them treatment?
While that might be true in some cases it almost certainly isn't in other cases.My parents are a great example.Both were major league smokers.My Mom died,at 52,of lung cancer.She spent some time in hospitals but not nearly as much as many do today (there was a lot less they could do for you back then).My Dad,OTOH,developed COPD (smoker's lung disease) and,for the last 15-20 years of his life,was in and out of hospitals regularly.IOW,I think the "system" saved $$$ in my mother's case but most certainly did *not* in my father's case.
Isn't that at the heart of the matter? First, convince people that everyone should pay equally for health care. Next, decide that certain people are less deserving of health care than others. Would such a scenario happen if the burden of paying for health care were shifted back to the individual instead of the collective?
The ambitions of the insurance companies have NOTHING to do with health. They are looking at risk management ~ they pass through any additional costs to the insured parties ~ but the insurance company minimizes its own risk even if they don’t minimize your own.
ok i’m just pointing out hypocrisy... ;)
54% of the doctors in this poll would simply tell them tough, go away and die, when they first presented with a smoking related illness. Even given everything folks say and think regarding behavior that leads to poor health, that poll result scares me somewhat. We’ve come a long way and unfortunately it seems to be the way of the culture of death.
There is something she is not telling you. More likely she did not make an effort to lose weight and was denied over concerns from her doctor.
A guy at the gym was obese and they required he lose 90 lbs before they did the transplant because if he was the same weight he would not be able to do the grueling rehab that is required for the transplants to be successful.
Kill everyone over 22.
The biggest fear the liberals have is that there are/will-be too many people on the earth. They want only 30 million people on this planet. That’s why gun control is so important to them. They want to control who the guns get pointed at. They want to determine who gets to live. Yes, they are that heinous.
Continue to believe what you want. Preventive care works. Every doctor will tell you so.
No they don’t. They used to.
People still won’t live any longer. The opportunities for coroners will continue to be optimal.
This is where we are heading and it makes perfect logical sense.
If I’m paying for someone else’s health insurance, I’m not going to pay for someone drinking, smoking, being fat, engaging in risky sex, riding motorcycles, hang-gliding, etc. (the list is endless).
This is where we are heading and it makes perfect logical sense.
If I’m paying for someone else’s health insurance, I’m not going to pay for someone drinking, smoking, being fat, engaging in risky sex, riding motorcycles, hang-gliding, etc. (the list is endless).
This is where we are heading and it makes perfect logical sense.
If I’m paying for someone else’s health insurance, I’m not going to pay for someone drinking, smoking, being fat, engaging in risky sex, riding motorcycles, hang-gliding, etc. (the list is endless).
No, she has made efforts to lose the weight, including recording every bite that she eats. The doctors have decided that her problem is hormonal. She is actually fairly active, as well. She runs a small farm with cows and goats. The county gave her too much trouble over the pigs, but she used to raise them, too.
The insurance representative told her that even if it was a heart attack, they would not cover it, if the doctor attributed the heart attack to her weight.
The insurance was union insurance. Her husband is a member of the electrical workers union.
But just as at the 2008 and 2009 Chicago Marathons, Frighetto was unable to finish because of injury.
Frighetto, a self-described former couch potato, said that since she first decided to run a marathon in late 2006, she has seen doctors for a stress fracture in her foot, plantar fasciitis and iliotibial band syndrome. The activity that promised to make her healthier was actually increasing the frequency of her doctor visits, a fact that makes amateur athletes like her a problematic group of people for health insurance companies to insure. And as more and more people become marathoners — the 2011 Boston Marathon sold out in eight hours — distance runners are becoming a hard group to ignore.
“Insurance companies love runners because they’re healthy people... But, he added, because they train so hard, they have injuries and accidents that can sometimes make them difficult to insure.
. Distance running, in particular, has a documented history of injury: a 2007 study published in The British Journal of Sports Medicine found rates of injury to the lower extremities were as high as 79 percent in long-distance runners.
The survey...found that 593, or 54 percent, of the 1,096 doctors who participated answered yes to this question: “Should the NHS be allowed to refuse non-emergency treatments to patients unless they lose weight or stop smoking?”
54% is a pretty high rate of moronic incompetence to have in a healthcare system.
Being a gay male is worse for heath than either of the above... I assume they're going to deny non-emergency medical services for gay men next, right?
As I understand it, the biggest problem for the NHS is cost. OK, here’s how you fix it. When the patient-to-be comes to the clinic or hospital for any reason, give them a cyanide capsule and send them away. When it gets bad enough, they’ll take it and the health problem goes away.
Now, having saved money on treatments, we can save further by laying off surplus staff. [If you have decreased numbers of patients, you don’t need staff.] When the staff protests, give them a cyanide capsule and tell them they have no benefits. The only down side is the government may have a shortage of pills for awhile — until demand and supply catch up.
This logic would extend to the denial of emergency and critical care as well. There would be where the real savings would be. Perhaps, since the majority of our illnesses are the result of either careless exposure to sick people, lifestyle or old age (to which there is no cure), we can just do away with health care entirely and save a whole boatload of cash.
Long ago I was in a class where the distinction was made between active and passive euthanasia.
It was euthanasia and (sounded like)athanasia????
I was awake for the whole class?
Less people smoke now than ever and health costs have never been higher. I know there are tons of other variables, but there is no evidence smokers cost the system. 30 years ago it seemed everyone smoked and my medical insurance was probably 10% of what it is now, adjusted for inflation. Targeting smokers is just using a scapegoat to distract from the real problems. I have been smoking for 20 years and I have been to the doctor a total of one time in the last 6 years and that was because I got the flu, unrelated to smoking... and that visit was paid out of pocket toward my $3,000 deductable.
Then they should not have to pay taxes for the NHS, right?
Discrimination. Some habits have more civil rights than others. Why not deny treatment for Sexually Transmitted Diseases TOO????
I’ve been smoking for 60 years and here I am.
What a world !
Nanny State PING!
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