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Well what is freedom? Is having millions of obese people who potentially cannot work freedom? Or the fact that our taxes must go up to fund for their healthcare?
Jefferson would have also said that with freedom comes responsibility, freedom is not licence. The social costs of this obesity epidemic have to be curtailed.
Actually, obese people don't live to ripe old ages and can actually die quite suddenly.
With that said, there is quite possibly a social BENEFIT in that they don't collect social security and that their medical costs are really no more than anyone else as everyone incurs them eventually.
So, I don't really think you can play the whole "fat people cost us money" card.
It may seem a punitive move, but if the obesity epidemic does not abate, then what measures should be taken to ensure it does?
Should there be taxes on fast food? Should fast food even be outlawed?
What I support is making fat people pay their own health care instead of subsidizing it by jacking up insurance rates for everyone else. If your'e fat and have more health issues as a result, tough luck your rates are going up. How is that any different from someone who has a bunch of car accidents on their record showing they're a bad driver? Why should health insurance be any different?
What I support is making fat people pay their own health care instead of subsidizing it by jacking up insurance rates for everyone else. If your'e fat and have more health issues as a result, tough luck your rates are going up. How is that any different from someone who has a bunch of car accidents on their record showing they're a bad driver? Why should health insurance be any different?
The reason is that it's difficult to ascertain a persons health insurance factors without intrusive monitoring. Too fat? Too skinny? Genetic problems? Family history? Take part in injury prone sports and activities? The list goes on and on.
For example, insurance companies don't use miles driven as a firm cost basis for auto insurance.
In reality though, most medical plans are going more and more towards a major medical type situation so they are actually paying more if thier health is worse and they are in this type of plan.
\If your'e fat and have more health issues as a result, tough luck your rates are going up.
How do you prove that "health issues" are definitively and solely caused by obesity? Might an overweight person with diabetes or heart disease or ... (insert random disease here) have developed the disease regardless of weight?
In all seriousness, there are so many inequities in the health insurance business that obesity is just a drop in the bucket. For instance, if I am being treated for high blood pressure or diabetes, am I not healthier than someone who has these things yet has not been diagnosed? Yet I can't get insurance, but someone else who is untreated for these things can.
Well, we subsidize the corn industry and I resent that my tax money supports that. Other than eating corn in the summer, I have no other reason to eat it. Since I stopped eating overly processed foods and foods with high fructose corn syrup and other corn-based 'synthetics' a few years ago, corn plays a smaller part of my diet. Yes, it feeds the chickens that I eat. But I don't eat beef (which are forced to eat corn even though they shouldn't be). So why should my tax money go to support an entire industry based on one vegetable?
On the other hand, why not support a tax on unhealthy foods? We tax cigarettes. I see a lot of fat people walking out of the grocery store with liters of soda and bags of junk food (chips, cookies, etc.). These people are going to be a burden on our system when they hit their 50s and have diabetes and high blood pressure. Their kids are already getting fat and sick. Should we be encouraging this? And if you think it's wrong to take people's money when they want to drink a liter of soda then stop spending my money on corn.
I think because junk food is so cheap, with massive portions given by the fast food outlets, obesity is bound to follow.
I've been told that most of the beef used in fast food franchises & sold in supermarkets, is full of artificial growth hormone. so it's no wonder people are becoming morbidly obese.
So, the idea is to have the government ban fatty foods, unhealthful foods, fast food? Hmmm, I can see it now . . . hamburger speakeasies!
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