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?
Agree.
But once government takes over all health care...that changes the whole argument.
Doesn’t it?
Well when that happens it’s all over for this country.
He also has said in the past:
once everything is illegal, then nothing is illegal.
I do....for me and my family. I do not want the state to confiscate more of my wages to pay for "everyone" else at my expense and that of my dependents. I gladly pay for emergency first responder care....fire, paramedic, police....for my community. Apart from that, the rest is up to each individual.
What I’m trying to point out is a paradox in the lefty’s thinking.
They are arguing that health care is a right and that is why government should provide free health care to all...and in doing so, they will destroy free market health care.
But they also say that to make it cost effective they will limit or deny care to certain individuals in certain circumstances to eliminate waste that pervades the current free market health care system.
Is that not a paradox?
If the government takes over health care and in the process destroys free market health care for the purpose of providing free health care to all, but to balance the books and cut “waste” must deny care to some...see where I’m going with this?
WHAT THE HELL IS THAT? They just destroyed their own purpose for starting this whole mess in the first place.
But worse than that, they will be violating our rights (pursuit of happiness) for the purpose of guaranteeing a right that doesn’t exist (free health care to all), and they can’t even make good on that promise either!
We lose everything and gain nothing.
I don’t understand why people cant see this.
The only people who should be denied treatment are journalists and politicians.
Sorry, I wasn’t clear. When I said “you obviously need it” I was speaking to “those who vote democrat”, not to you. Poor wording on my part.
Oh, OK. Gotcha. There were several post from Freepers who seemed to think I agreed with the idea, and I was just pointing out the perils of allowing government into our lives.
Do killers(Hasan) shot by police deserve health care after they assasinate 13 people and wound 30 more?
How about pregnant women; afterall, it is a choice isn’t it?
Of course. I knew what you were doing.
It’s a good thread topic. Thanks for posting it.
Of course they do. The libs continually bitch that healthcare is a human right. If it’s a RIGHT, there’s no exception for what kind of human you are. That’s how the libs have argued for INCLUSION of the rest of us paying for illegal immigrant ER care, homosexuals’ expensive drug therapies, everyone’s abortions, and STD treatments via all sorts of federal funding dollars through a myriad of government agencies and programs.
THis is nothing short of the libs being skewered by their own hypocritical sword.
It is yet another example of selling US citizens on a system they tout will be “for all” and then the libs (ie the “intolerant tolerants”) start excluding groups they NEVER HAD INTENDED TO HELP IN THE FIRST PLACE.
This is no surprise to those who have studied the left. Deflect, divide and conquer.
Fat people are the last of the society allowed picked on class.
Let me guess, the same folks who hold thier nose up to ‘fatties’ will be crying and whining about how “we” need to pay for junkies to be sent to rehab (for the 10th time) and careless homosexuals who got AIDS from reckless behavior should have AIDS cocktails paid for by “us”.
But God forbid you are predisposed to being large or have medical condition that either requires medicine that increases weight or whatever, and NOOOO, no medicine for you fatty!
We all are paying for Medicare and Medicaid now.
Nothing will change.
Deprive any of my loved ones treatment, for any reason whatsoever, and you will have me to deal with.
I suspect that there is a dark side within every man, even us law abiding nice guys. These libs should not want to meet my dark side.
I doubt that I am alone on this.
Seems like the Obama bunch believes we all belong to the government, rather than ourselves.
If the government DID own us, it could make decisions about who gets treatment for what. But the state does not own us. We are independent individuals with free wheel, we can decide what works for us.
I guess that last was true until 2008.
That is true. The eternal struggle is where to draw the line. It makes little sense to me to bemoan the loss of a restaurant’s right to sell foods with trans fats to the public (and it’s NOT illegal for anyone to consume trans fats produced by himself) while ignoring the prohibition of a person’s right to grow a particular plant in his own yard and harvest and consume it. But I’ve never heard of Rush getting behind a movement to legalize drugs.
yea.amen to that. and who the hell do these other people think they are that they can dictate who gets what???
Well, the conscience is a brake so our free wheel isn’t used injudiciously.
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