That's just the easy excuse I always hear, especially from rich western countries. But think about this - you never saw fat people in Belsen did you and probabilities suggest there must have more than a few people with genetics that cause excess weight..... Summary: It ALL comes down to calories in versus calories burnt.
Yeah, freedom...the magical word, sadly, rarely used within context. Problem with your stance is that the current state-funded medical care and healthcare costs spread the financial burden among the population regardless of their health condition. If everyone was paying for their own healthcare costs we wouldn't be having a discussion as it would be a non issue. Your proposal would be equivalent as having a fat tax. Think about it, instead of paying your tax for the bottle of scotch or the cigars, you'd just pay a higher insurance premium to your healthcare provider. Conversely you can have a lower healthcare premiums and pay the scotch/cigar tax. The beauty of the latter is that you still have scotch and cigars whenever you want but your healthcare premiums are less likely to increase in the long run as there will be savings associated with less medication and treatment of heart related diseases for instance. You die obese and happy, at age 55, and we don't have to pay for it. Win win situation.
What are these food products and raw materials that are known to be direct culprits (WTF is a "direct culprit" anyway?) of obesity? Rice? Cheese? Beef? Bread? Corn? Cooking oil? Chicken with the skin on? Chicken wings? Eggs? Mayo? Salmon?
Actually, if I were a fattie who dies suddenly at 55, your socialist system makes out better than if I am a fit runner who lives to 95 and gets my knees and hips replaced which entail surgery, hospital stays, medical hardware, and years of physical therapy.
Sure if the victim died the first time around it would be cheaper except there's a high cost to try and save the person and if the person is saved then they come back for another round of heart attacks which means more cost. And if they survive past 55 due to all this then their health only gets more serious as they also experience bad knees, joints, etc but to a much higher degree because their unfit bodies get older and its more of a burden to suppot the mass on old bones. Not to mention the higher likeliness of developing diabetes among other expensive shit. By the way, explain to me how forcing healthy people to pay for walking suicide cases through higher insurance premium is somehow less socialist? If anything having the choice of paying lower health premiums and paying taxes on only what I consume is no more socialist than the current system of me being forced to pay.
Thats a big "if" considering the possible complications with obesity http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/07/080708193249.htm You can hang around a long time with type 2 diabetes.
Bingo!! +1 Imagine the day Shaq says that the double burger tastes much better with carrot sticks than french fries. And the LeBron James of America saying how the cool popular kid in school is the one that uses his bike to go to school and the loser has to drive a car. And Eminem's song raging about fruit salad instead of skittles makes it No1 seller of all times. Imagine that.
A. The gov't ain't forcing you to buy insurance... unless you're talking about Medicaid/Medicare B. If you don't like health insurance, don't buy it C. I am cool with charging unhealthy people more for insurance. I am also cool with employers firing fat or unhealthy people. Your problem is with socialists who tell insurance companies what they can charge, and socialists who tell employers that they can't fire fatties. D. Black people have a higher rate of diabetes... I am cool with insurance companies charging black people more for health insurance. I am not in favor of govts taxing black people for being black. Get the difference? E. When I got life insurance, the insurance company sent me for a physical where I was weighed, measured, evaluated, and questioned about my lifestyle. The insurance company gave me a rate for life insurance based on my physical condition and lifestyle. What's wrong with that? My wife pays less for life insurance simply because she is a woman, and is, statistically, expected to live longer than me. What's wrong with that? If you're complaining about paying for "walking suicide cases" on Medicare/Medicaid, then I agree with you... let's abolish those socialist programs, and let the "walking suicide cases" buy the health care they need, or die in accordance with their lifestyle choices. I am not asking you to pay for anyone's "walking suicide." You're asking me to pay for their walking suicides, and then you're telling me you're going to tax my milk and butter because some mofos can't control themselves or educate themselves or just can't take care of themselves. I didn't ask for the social safety net... it was thrown on top of me... and now that there are some people abusing the system thrown on top of me, you want me to pay a tax for their sins? That's effin' retarded.
A. The gov't ain't forcing you to buy insurance... unless you're talking about Medicaid/Medicare No the gov't doesn't force anyone to buy insurance....yet, but anyone can go to the ER and get treated with no health insurance and stick the tax payer with the bill. So in a backdoor type of way pretty much anybody in this country can get free emergency care without paying any premium. This tax would force those people to start paying something. B. If you don't like health insurance, don't buy it. So I should either have no health care and stick the tax payer with my bills or have health insurance where I subsidize the purposely unhealthy. I don't really see how thats free market, either the general population takes care of my bills (socialist) or the insurance company takes my money and uses it to take care of someone else's bills who chooses to be unhealthy(socialist). If thats the only choices then you're probably gonna start seeing a lot of healthy people say fuck this and start dropping coverage leaving all the fatties with massive premium hikes (which they deserve) and more people showing up to the hospitals with no insurance and sticking the tax payer with the bill. IF this tax actually manages to lower premiums you're going to have more people with health insurance and if you don't gorge on crap then you are rewarded and if you want to stuff your ass then you rightfully pay more. I think that makes more sense than the current system. C. I am cool with charging unhealthy people more for insurance. I am also cool with employers firing fat or unhealthy people. Your problem is with socialists who tell insurance companies what they can charge, and socialists who tell employers that they can't fire fatties. I agree with you with the exception of I don't think fat people should be fired simply for being fat but they definitely need to be paying more. D. Black people have a higher rate of diabetes... I am cool with insurance companies charging black people more for health insurance. I am not in favor of govts taxing black people for being black. Get the difference? I agree with the concept. E. When I got life insurance, the insurance company sent me for a physical where I was weighed, measured, evaluated, and questioned about my lifestyle. The insurance company gave me a rate for life insurance based on my physical condition and lifestyle. What's wrong with that? My wife pays less for life insurance simply because she is a woman, and is, statistically, expected to live longer than me. What's wrong with that? This is how health insurance should be done, unfortunately this simply is not the case and probably one of the biggest points of frustration. I am not asking you to pay for anyone's "walking suicide." You're asking me to pay for their walking suicides, and then you're telling me you're going to tax my milk and butter because some mofos can't control themselves or educate themselves or just can't take care of themselves. I didn't ask for the social safety net... it was thrown on top of me... and now that there are some people abusing the system thrown on top of me, you want me to pay a tax for their sins? That's effin' retarded. The current system either forces people to not have insurance and stick tax payers with the bill for serious medical needs or it punishes the healthy by forcing them to pay for walking suicides that are in the insurance pools. So if you choose to not have insurance then you are still paying for health care by being the backstop for the uninsured. Although this tax will hit everybody to a degree, if it cuts health insurance premiums then it should provide a benefit to the responsible people who will save on their health insurance costs and punish the people that are not responsible. I'm not sure if I would personally support this bill because I simply don't believe the gov't would do the responsible thing and collect all the taxes generated by this and give a tax credit towards everyone's insurance premiums because based on the track record of this gov't (regardless of demoncrats or redumblicants) they would use the money towards some other useless crap the country can't afford. If the premium drop is more significant than the cost of the additional taxes for a healthy person then I think this is a better solution. Of course all the fatties are gonna hate this because they'll actually have to start paying their fair share and take some responsibility for themselves for a change. For me the better solution would just be to increase the premiums on the obese and lower them on healthy people but for whatever reason that doesn't seem to be a possibility so we have to do something else to lower the cost. At some point these 10%+ yearly increases we've had in premiums (and no Obamacare hasn't been around for the last 10 years so that scapegoat can only be used for so long) are going to start causing some serious issues.