Posted on 12/05/2009 9:34:32 AM PST by Still Thinking
Faced with an “obesity epidemic“, that has dramatic consequences for medical costs, pundits have proposed different solutions, ranging from excluding obesity from health insurance, government-run prevention campaigns, higher taxes on junk food, or higher premiums for fat people.
The possibility of greater government involvement in medicine with the passing of ObamaCare puts this debate in a new light. If the government decides who gets money for medical treatment, the question of whether fat people deserve medical treatment will become a political issue.
The question of who "deserves" treatment is only conceivable in a welfare state. In a free, capitalist society, people are able to allocate their wealth according to their judgment of the merit of their own and other’s health, including the degree to which they are culpable for their condition. However, there is no rational way to allocate property taken by force.
Does Jake, who became paralyzed because he liked extreme sports, or Kate, who has lung cancer because she is a smoker, or Mary, who has problems because has a tendency towards obesity which she does not try to control with diet or exercise, or Sue, who is dying from old age, and whose life might be slightly extended at tremendous cost deserve my money?
What about soldiers that volunteer to go into a war zone?
YES, they are human.
And my father who needed a quadruple bypass and with my sister who has MS deserve treatment as well.
WE ALL DESERVE TREATMENT. GET IT?
They deserve anything they can pay for.
Boom! There it is! I’ve been saying it since before Obama was elected - socialized medicine is the end of your freedom. If healthcare is as critical a resources as its proponents say, why would you put it under government, which can DENY you that care, even if you have the money for it? Or should I say, deny you care, UNLESS YOU DO WHAT THEY SAY.
If you vote democrat, should we pay for your neurological care? (You obviously need it.)
Send this guy for free psychiatric care and reeducation.
Do Liberals deserve medical treatment beyond abortion? They asked first.
This way of thinking is disgusting. Maybe the people who THINK this way should be denied care because they obviously are lacking a heart and have no soul at all.
JMHO
The government run “healthcare” will obviously decide which lifestyle it likes, and which lifestyle it hates.
Druggies, the anal sex crowd, aids patients from other countries, women having abortions, elderly being forced out of life, will all get favored treatment in government run “healthcare.”
Obese, elderly cancer patients will get nothing.
The National Socialist believed in the very same BS.
Amazing how someone spouts this *rap and then wonders why people wonder if they are suffering from a mental problem.
Deserve it in the sense that they can buy or I can buy it for them?
Exactly. If you don't want to treat a certain segment of our population for the results of willingly , then those segments should be defined and exempted from paying INTO the system. Somehow I never hear those who don't want to treat these people out of fairness to other recipients alarmed about the fairness of making them pay but not allowing them to collect.Then there's the whole issue of politically correct high-risk populations. Those who want to shut the gates on smokers, drinkers, fatties, and bungee jumpers never seem to want to do the same to active homosexuals, a population willingly engaging in a behavior that leads to a higher risk of an illness that’s VERY expensive to treat. Now read carefully, I’m not taking the opposite inconsistent position, that it WOULD be fair to allow homosexuals to pay in and then be denied treatment. I’m just pointing out that the proponents of restrictions are inconsistent PC hypocrites.
But really, all this paradoxical situation does is show that government shouldn't have a high degree of involvement in our lives. Every time they do, these hard choices arise. The government intrudes in our life in one area without invitation, then uses that involvement to justify further intrusion.
The Democrats, not being human beings, will deny health care to anyone that isn’t one of their species. This, unfortunately, excludes fat people, hang glider dudes and Repubican oldsters.
Dude, I’m on your side on this one. Really.
It is with extreme sadness that anyone who considers themselves to be free men would even contemplate this issue.
Exactly. Health care is not a right.
90% of congress is obese... so no, they do not
“...there is no rational way to allocate property taken by force...”
People are still going to look out for their own interests first, but introducing government into the equation will change whose interests are at stake. What socialized medicine does is substitute an economic decision made by the people directly involved into a political decision made by outsiders.
How it is that someone could think that — drawing from the same pool of ‘selfish’ people — having it so there is a monopoly that is enforced by the coercive power of government is somehow going to be more compassionate or efficient baffles me.
Do people “deserve” food? Since we are talking health, and since food is indispensable to health, how long until they reach the logical conclusion that “we” as a society surely have a right to food at taxpayers expense.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.