

#21
Posted 10 June 2003 - 01:42 PM
But US does have a point... national health care gives the gov't a near-legitimate excuse to tell people how to eat, among other things. Remember this in 2004.
Me: "I have a job and five credit cards and am looking into signing a two year lease. THAT MAKES ME OLD."
Josh: "I don't have a job, I have ONE credit card, I'm stuck in a lease and I'm 28! My mom's basement IS ONE BAD DECISION AWAY!"
~~ Josh, winning the argument.
"Congress . . . shall include every idiot, lunatic, insane person, and person non compos mentis[.]" ~1 U.S.C. § 1, selectively quoted for accuracy.
#22
Posted 10 June 2003 - 01:50 PM
#23
Posted 10 June 2003 - 01:53 PM
usmarox, on Jun 9 2003, 08:38 PM, said:

Every penny brought into the government this way is money that people would otherwise have spent somewhere of their own choosing, and is thus a penny taken out of the economy, like all money the government confiscates. Maybe some sectors of the economy would be harmed more than others, but it won't just be the fat people (whom it's apparently OK to pull stunts like this on).
Edited by Delvo, 10 June 2003 - 02:01 PM.
#24
Posted 10 June 2003 - 01:58 PM
Laoise, on Jun 9 2003, 02:11 PM, said:
#25
Posted 10 June 2003 - 02:02 PM
And if you want to save these shores. For Pity sake Don't Trust them.
paraphrased from H. "Breaker" Morant
TANSTAAFL
If you voted for Obama then all the mistakes he makes are your fault and I will point this out to you every time he does mess up.
When the fall is all that remains. It matters a great deal.
All hail the clich's all emcompassing shadow.
My playing well with other's skill has been vastly overrated
Member of the Order of the Knigths of the Woeful Countance.
#26
Posted 10 June 2003 - 02:05 PM
Quote
It's been a long time I did anything on human health and disease (at least, that didn't involve viruses). So, for the benefit of my slightly leaky mind, remind me again what the societal and personal benefits of obesity are?
I'm genuinely curious.
You are not free, whose liberty is won by other, more righteous souls. You are merely protected. You suck the honourable man dry and offer nothing in return. Now, the time has come for you to pay for that freedom, and you will pay in the currency of honest toil and human blood."
Inquisitor Czevak, Address to the Council of Ryanti.
And no less true for being fictional.
Two ears, one mouth. Use them in that ratio.
#27
Posted 10 June 2003 - 02:10 PM
Laoise, on Jun 9 2003, 07:54 PM, said:
Me: "I have a job and five credit cards and am looking into signing a two year lease. THAT MAKES ME OLD."
Josh: "I don't have a job, I have ONE credit card, I'm stuck in a lease and I'm 28! My mom's basement IS ONE BAD DECISION AWAY!"
~~ Josh, winning the argument.
"Congress . . . shall include every idiot, lunatic, insane person, and person non compos mentis[.]" ~1 U.S.C. § 1, selectively quoted for accuracy.
#28
Posted 10 June 2003 - 02:42 PM
usmarox, on Jun 9 2003, 09:09 PM, said:
#29
Posted 10 June 2003 - 02:50 PM
Delvo, on Jun 9 2003, 09:46 PM, said:
usmarox, on Jun 9 2003, 09:09 PM, said:
The health risks associated with being obese aren't personal opinions either. They do exist.
#30
Posted 10 June 2003 - 02:58 PM
and it's STILL not the government's business.

#31
Posted 10 June 2003 - 03:16 PM
If it was the government in the United States talking about this, it would be different. The weight, and the weight-related health problems, of its population isn't the government's business. But the tax would be in the UK, and there, in my opinion, it is the government's business.
#32
Posted 10 June 2003 - 03:55 PM



SmG
#33
Posted 10 June 2003 - 04:00 PM
Laoise, on Jun 9 2003, 09:20 PM, said:
If it was the government in the United States talking about this, it would be different. The weight, and the weight-related health problems, of its population isn't the government's business. But the tax would be in the UK, and there, in my opinion, it is the government's business.
Citizens already pay through the nose in taxes for nationalized health care (which btw, from what I was told on my recent visit SUCKS). They are ALREADY paying for it.
The government doesn't have carte blanche to dictate personal decisions like whether to choose the carrot or the oreo.

#34
Posted 10 June 2003 - 10:50 PM
Laoise, on Jun 9 2003, 10:20 PM, said:
How much more a fat person costs than a skinny one is an amount that it'll be impossible to really calculate correctly, and it would be different from individual to individual, so ANY attempt to fix inequities in the system will only create other inequities. And you'd still miss the inequities involving people more likely to cost the system money because of behaviors such as risky stunts, aggressive driving, hiking/hunting, sports, travel to low-hygiene plague-suffering countries, living far from work and/or travelling the wrong way to get there, living and working in buildings with stairs instead of a single story, working in certain physically intense professions, and a bunch of others I can't even think of offhand.
A government program is a money redistribution scheme, which means accepting the fact that some people will always end up paying others' bills if you're going to accept such a system. In fact, having some pay others' bills is the entire purpose. If you'd rather have people paying for their own health care costs, you'd let private companies run it, and they'd base the individuals' charges on a formula that would include weight and other information. But then those who want government to run things would complain that the businesses were being unfair to charge people different amounts, and demand that government step in to equalize things. Within a system designed to equalize and distribute, when there are so many possible ways to separate and distinguish, singling out fat people as the lone group to take more money from is prejudiced.
#35
Posted 11 June 2003 - 06:25 AM
#36
Posted 11 June 2003 - 07:04 AM
Quote
And if the tax doesn't have anything to do with obesity then there goes the argument that it's a good thing because it promotes the government's concerns about weight.
You can't have it both ways.

#37
Posted 11 June 2003 - 07:09 AM
Delvo, on Jun 10 2003, 06:54 AM, said:
So I have to pay because I'm a risk factor.
If someone needs lots of medical treatments, obese or otherwise, they should pay more. They're costing more.
Although, taxing twinkies isn't the way to do it.

-Nick
"James Carville emerges from the conflagration riding a burning alligator . . ."
#38
Posted 11 June 2003 - 07:41 AM
Una Salus Lillius, on Jun 10 2003, 02:43 AM, said:
GROSS over simplification.
The government has no right to tell people how to eat.

You know who gets nailed to the wall on this one? People who can't afford private insurance. Whether it's here or in the U.K., there are those who would need "national health" and those who have money who choose their healthcare privately and whose doctors aren't going to be nagging them about this stuff. It's always the poor who get nailed.
Plus which, it's just wrong, okay?
Anne, tempted but trying to refrain from pointing out the hypocrisy of a
bunch of overweight, smoking, drug-doing doctors and legislators telling
the population they should eat more beets.
#39
Posted 11 June 2003 - 07:58 AM
You GO girl.
BTW, at my favorite restaurant, Plouf they have this little salad. It's beets, with this yummy vinagrette and spinach greens and it comes with two croquests made of goat cheese and walnuts and it's just about the most heavenly thing on earth.


#40
Posted 11 June 2003 - 09:01 AM
Una Salus Lillius, on Jun 10 2003, 09:02 PM, said:
You GO girl.
BTW, at my favorite restaurant, Plouf they have this little salad. It's beets, with this yummy vinagrette and spinach greens and it comes with two croquests made of goat cheese and walnuts and it's just about the most heavenly thing on earth.

Okay, beets (the unpickled variety) are yummy.

I'm just saying. I have trouble picturing my post-heart-attack physician with the pot belly and the nicotine-stained fingers narcing on me for my eating habits, smoking habits, or weight.

Also tagged with one or more of these keywords: Diet & Health, Obesity, Fat
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