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Do penalties for smokers and the obese make sense?
Record Online ^ | Jan 26, 2013 | Mike Stobbe

Posted on 01/26/2013 12:59:43 PM PST by Vince Ferrer

NEW YORK (AP) -- Faced with the high cost of caring for smokers and overeaters, experts say society must grapple with a blunt question: Instead of trying to penalize them and change their ways, why not just let these health sinners die?

(Excerpt) Read more at hosted.ap.org ...


TOPICS: Government; News/Current Events; US: New York
KEYWORDS: antitobaccoscam; bullystate; foodpolice; nannystate; obamacare; obesity; pufflist; scam
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You knew it was coming.

"Your freedom is likely to be someone else's harm," said Daniel Callahan, senior research scholar at a bioethics think-tank, the Hastings Center.

"When you eat yourself to death, you're pretty much just harming yourself," he said.

But that viewpoint doesn't factor in the burden to everyone else of paying for the diabetes care, heart surgeries and other medical expenses incurred by obese people, noted John Cawley, a health economist at Cornell University.

They own us as property now through health care, we have very few rights left. And yes, it was intentional from the beginning.

1 posted on 01/26/2013 12:59:51 PM PST by Vince Ferrer
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To: Vince Ferrer

Why of course... it was always a “control the world” scheme, not just keeping it civilized. Nannies demand to be paid.


2 posted on 01/26/2013 1:03:43 PM PST by HiTech RedNeck (How long before all this "fairness" kills everybody, even the poor it was supposed to help???)
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To: Vince Ferrer

An alternative proposal that would make leftists lose their minds:

“The Medical Care Provider And Patient Freedom Act”

1. If a medical care provider does not accept Medicare or Medicaid patients or insurance payments for medical services, they are exempt from Obamacare and HIPPA. This is an Opt Out, with no penalties for either Opting Out or in future joining the system if they so choose.

2. If a patient decides that they exclusively want to use medical services from a provider who has Opted Out of Obamacare, Medicare, Medicaid, and insurance payments for medical care, they may also OPT OUT, and will be exempt from any fines, penalties, or taxation to support these programs. Likewise they will be removed from and no longer participate in all provisions of HIPPA or any other government medical records or statistics information processing or retention system, unless they OPT IN.

3. Physicians and patients who have Opted Out of these systems will no longer have any personal or medical information shared with public or private entities, unless it is essential to their medical care and done with exact permissions for each and every use.


3 posted on 01/26/2013 1:06:20 PM PST by yefragetuwrabrumuy (Best WoT news at rantburg.com)
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To: Vince Ferrer

And homos spreading aids? They included in this concept?


4 posted on 01/26/2013 1:06:30 PM PST by DesertRhino (I was standing with a rifle, waiting for soviet paratroopers, but communists just ran for office.)
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To: Vince Ferrer
Along with adulthood come rights, responsibilities, and consequences. The government interfering in this equation is the root cause of our dilemma.
5 posted on 01/26/2013 1:06:55 PM PST by oldbrowser (They are marxists, don't call them democrats)
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To: Vince Ferrer
Interesting gambit: Instead of trying to penalize them and change their ways, why not just let these health sinners die?

How do you suppose they'll respond when we apply this question to AIDS?
Of course thy will use all sorts of vituperation against the questioner but, do they actually plan to stay in power forever?

6 posted on 01/26/2013 1:09:22 PM PST by stormhill
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To: Vince Ferrer
"But that viewpoint doesn't factor in the burden to everyone else of paying for the diabetes care, heart surgeries and other medical expenses incurred by obese people, noted John Cawley, a health economist at Cornell University."

And THAT statement doesn't factor in the insured paying their own insurance.

I have chronic bronchitis (so they say .. actually, I think I have preliminary emphasema from 45 plus years of smoking before quitting about a year ago) and I can treat myself OTC at the moment.

I have cancer care insurance through an NRA authorized 3rd party and a life policy for burial expenses, all coming out of my SS which doesn't leave much, but my needs are few.

How many people actually GET more than outpatient care if they're welfare recipients?

Isn't THAT what this cornball economist is saying?

How can WE ALL be paying ... except it's welfare insurance ?

Is he saying a fat man in need of heart surgery, on welfare GETS that new heart, or lung, or kidney or bypass or whatever ?

If so, THAT'S the travesty of welfare.

Food, housing, clothing and kids insurance is MORE than enough.

7 posted on 01/26/2013 1:12:36 PM PST by knarf (I say things that are true ... I have no proof ... but they're true)
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To: Vince Ferrer

Well why don’t these liberal controllers apply that same logic to illegals? I am tired of the lie that they contribute more than they take, ever been in a emergency room, they use it as their normal Doctors office. I once waited in a ER for close to two hours with a severe laceration, it took twenty seven stitches, while they kept taking in the undocumented( and yes I know they were, I was close enough to the window were they filled out the forms)with a little cough or such. I finally had to go up to nurse and threaten to remove the bandages I had put on and bleed all over the ER. I have seen Trauma center after trauma center closed in hospitals because they can’t recoup the cost for services from the illegals.


8 posted on 01/26/2013 1:12:48 PM PST by Mastador1 (I'll take a bad dog over a good politician any day!)
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To: Vince Ferrer

In their infinite hypocrisy, the government has somehow decided that hate speech is O.K. when “shaming” obese people? I read that they are thinking of a “shaming” campaign against the overweight? Aren’t they also participating in an “anti-bullying” campaign? Anyone else see the hypocrisy here? Could they really be THAT stupid?


9 posted on 01/26/2013 1:15:23 PM PST by marstegreg
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To: Vince Ferrer

Of course they make sense.... in a public healthcare system. But who the hell wants one of those? The great thing about having private healthcare, is you’re free to do what you want, but in the end, you have to pay for it, not someone else.

This is why private industry succeeds, public industry sucks. You can only spend o much of other people’s money.


10 posted on 01/26/2013 1:16:51 PM PST by Viennacon
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To: Vince Ferrer

It’s all part if the plan. The food pyramid was invented to make people die a lot younger. They want control, plain and simple.


11 posted on 01/26/2013 1:17:16 PM PST by numberonepal (First they came for Sarah, then they came for Herman.....)
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To: marstegreg

The liberals have not succeeded in extirpating those horrid moralizers at all. They’ve simply changed what’s being preached and to whom.


12 posted on 01/26/2013 1:18:42 PM PST by HiTech RedNeck (How long before all this "fairness" kills everybody, even the poor it was supposed to help???)
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To: Vince Ferrer

Why don’t these people just mind their own f’n business?


13 posted on 01/26/2013 1:22:11 PM PST by donhunt (Certified and proud "Son of a Bitch".)
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To: Vince Ferrer
I question their figures on the economic cost. Do they take into account the money saved when smokers and the obese die without collecting social security or pensions? How about the cost of taking care of an otherwise healthy 80 year old who is suffering from Alzheimer's?

That said, their argument is that they have a right to regulate your behavior based on economic impact to the state. IMHO, that is the essence of fascism. It should be made clear to these clowns that whipping too many people into fighting condition might well be hazardous to their own health.

14 posted on 01/26/2013 1:22:56 PM PST by beef (Who Killed Kennewick Man?)
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To: Mastador1

Illegals are a huge part of the problem. They (along with regular citizens without insurance) use the emergency room for any and all maladies. Those two groups never pay for the services.


15 posted on 01/26/2013 1:24:31 PM PST by Girlene
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To: DesertRhino
Homos? Oh no, regulating their right to spread a fatal disease would violate the Constitutional right to have sex when, where, and with whomever or whatever you please.

That’s the Constitutional right they're replacing the First and Second Amendments with.

Didn’t you get the memo?

16 posted on 01/26/2013 1:29:31 PM PST by Rashputin (Jesus Christ doesn't evacuate His troops, He leads them to victory.)
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To: numberonepal

There does seem to be a lot of confusion about diet and such. I’m skeptical of magic bullets, and the pyramid might be good for vitamins and minerals but it is not so great for keeping weight reasonable.

But being on the pudgy side myself and having gone back to a particular dieting organization which worked for me before but then I left it for twenty years, they’ve found that a surprisingly reasonable list of foods will do for self-regulated (eat all you need) diets. Extra-lean meats, ANY fruit, cooked cereal, reduced-calorie breads, any vegetable except those that are extremely fatty like olives or avocado, eggs, any nonfat dairy product, whole-grain pastas... molto assai, as they would put it in musical terms. (Juices and sugar don’t get included in that list unfortunately.) AND, reasonable amounts of non fatty condiments like ketchup, mustard, spices etc., AND about 300 calories a day worth of any miscellany you want that’s not on the list (or in the difference between a fatty/sugary product and its nonfat nonsugar counterpart). Not bad huh.

I think a lot of modern foods are richer than they need to be in quantities they are commonly consumed in. Satisfy your pangs with fruit and watch the rest, and you’ll be eating more healthily.


17 posted on 01/26/2013 1:31:38 PM PST by HiTech RedNeck (How long before all this "fairness" kills everybody, even the poor it was supposed to help???)
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To: Vince Ferrer
"Critics also contend that tobacco- and calorie-control measures place a disproportionately heavy burden on poor people. That's because they:"

"-Smoke more than the rich, and have higher obesity rates."

Poor people do all kinds of things that are not in their best interests. That's a large part of the reason that they are poor.

18 posted on 01/26/2013 1:31:45 PM PST by Sooth2222 ("Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of congress. But I repeat myself." M.Twain)
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To: Vince Ferrer

Many, if not all private insurance companies charge a higher rate for people that smoke. These private insurance companies have the data to back up their position that smokers carry a higher health risk which costs more.


19 posted on 01/26/2013 1:32:28 PM PST by OKRA2012
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To: HiTech RedNeck

The liberals have not succeeded in extirpating those horrid moralizers at all. They’ve simply changed what’s being preached and to whom.

I am REALLY looking forward to seeing how they defend their stance on this one! I how that Candy Crowley does the interview with,perhaps Chris Christie sitting next to her. Now THAT would be interesting!


20 posted on 01/26/2013 1:32:49 PM PST by marstegreg
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