Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

To: bruinbirdman

It can be argued that fit people use more health care services in a lifetime because they live longer. If this scheme is implemented in some form, the greatest unintended consequence will be that health care costs will go up, not down


42 posted on 07/23/2010 12:56:42 AM PDT by Praxeologue (io)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies ]


To: Kennard; Plumberman27; Pollster1; RJL; bruinbirdman
It can be argued that fit people use more health care services in a lifetime because they live longer. If this scheme is implemented in some form, the greatest unintended consequence will be that health care costs will go up, not down

Well, most doctors agree that the bulk of cost always happens during the last five years of your life, whether that is 67-72 or 88-93, because that's when people tend to get hospitalized a lot. A healthy, active lifestyle simply means that expensive things like dementia set in later.

I take you feel that people that jog should also pay additional taxes since in later life they end up having get their knee joints replaced. And what of the homosexual crowd who feel it is normal to have a mans penis thrust up the anal aperture? Now there is normal behavior. And while you are at it lets tax office workers since they sit on the asses all day and get hardly no activity unless they belong to a gym. Oh but the again there is that jogging tax. Let's tax black people too since they get sickle cell. Come on grow up.

The problem with this topic is that if you try to apply it minute differences in sizes it doesn't work. A moderately overweight person with an active livestyle (and no, I don't mean tall, muscular men which always are being discriminated against by BMI measurements, I simply mean someone who likes to eat but still is able to play with the kids or ride a bike) has no terribly increased risk at all. However, it is a fact that the morbidly or super-obese with their sedentary lifestyles, have significantly increased risks of expensive conditions like diabetes or cardiovascular problems. Which brings me to another fun fact:

Since certain “lifestyles” also increase health care costs, how about a tax on those choices? I don’t think that would be as popular with liberals and socialists as taxes on smokers and overweight people. / How expensive is it to treat HIV and Aids?

On average, lifetime healthcare costs for the super-obese (n.b.: not the moderately obese) are about the same (~half a million) as for people with HIV/AIDS, mainly because of expensive surgeries.
64 posted on 07/23/2010 11:32:32 AM PDT by wolf78 (Inflation is a form of taxation, too. Cranky Libertarian - equal opportunity offender.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 42 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson