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Some sicknesses ARE caused by choice: lifestyle choices. It's no secret that smoking causes cancer. It's no secret that being overweight can lead to diabetes, high blood pressure, and heart and liver disease. Being obese is a lifestyle choice. I don't believe that government health care, publicly funded healthcare, should cover diseases caused by lifestyle choices. Of course people who do everything right still get cancer- that's more of an 'accident' and should be covered by government healthcare if a person is indigent.
How far do you take your logic of not wanting to see any government funding taking care of people whose diseases and injuries are caused by lifestyle choices? What about young people living out their very expensive lives in closed head injury units? Most of them are there from motor cycle or car crash or extreme sports injuries. Insurance and families can't begin to pay all the costs involved. Should my niece with MS not receive any care though Medicaid because she was unfortunate enough to choose a husband who left her when she became wheelchair bound? When people start thinking like you do then we truly will end up with Death Panels someday. It's a very slippery slope to start using lifestyles choices as a Litmus Test in the medical field. By the way, smoking isn't the only thing that causes lung cancer. There's even a type of lung cancer that baby nurses get from breathing in too much baby powder and other that millers get from breathing in the dust from grain. They chose their careers, it's a lifestyle choice. Do we turn our backs on them as well as the smokers?
We have freedom of choice- to be obese or not. The government should not be in the business of telling us what to eat OR taking care of us when we get sick, especially because of those choices.
You are right. The governnment has no business in the food business. I'm even furious that they alert us to E Coli and bacteria in food. I say that we should be free to ingest all of the tainted and bacteria laden food we want. The industrial food industry should be allowed to profit off of the citizens of this country regardless of what product they market and how sick it makes us. That's capitalism and what's the big deal about a few rotten burgers and eggs when you the bottom line meets stockholders expectations!
Last edited by sickofnyc; 09-18-2010 at 12:56 PM..
You are right. The governenment has no business in the food business. I'm even furious that they alert us to E Coli and bacteria in food. I say that we should be free to ingest all of the tainted and bacteria laden food we want. The industrial food industry should be allowed to profit off of the citizens of this country regardless of what product they market and how sick it makes us. That's capitalism and what's the big deal about a few rotten burgers and eggs when you the bottom line meets stockholders expectations!
If you'd been sufficiently bootstrappy, you'd run your own E. Coli tests, of course.
Some sicknesses ARE caused by choice: lifestyle choices. It's no secret that smoking causes cancer. It's no secret that being overweight can lead to diabetes, high blood pressure, and heart and liver disease. Being obese is a lifestyle choice. I don't believe that government health care, publicly funded healthcare, should cover diseases caused by lifestyle choices. Of course people who do everything right still get cancer- that's more of an 'accident' and should be covered by government healthcare if a person is indigent.
What if a person is not indigent? You obviously don't know how much it costs to maintain individual coverage. In many states, like Florida, it's against the law to cancel a policy just because someone gets sick. However, doubling or tripling the premiums is not illegal. A friend in his 30s pays over $1,200 a month just for his own insurance because he has cancer. I can't believe he still has the strength to get up and go to work. A person who works but is not so poor that he qualifies for Medicaid, has to lose everything before becoming eligible. It's ridiculous that people who are against affordable health insurance (like a Public Option) because it will cost money, want working families to become so destitute that they have to go on Welfare. Think about it.
I don't have anything against Ms. Obama or any other citizen speaking out against obesity, and sharing information about preventing obesity. I do have a problem with people thinking it's the GOVERNMENT'S responsibility- especially financial responsibility- to legislate businesses into being healthy, or make certain foods illegal. I also have a problem with the government using tax dollars to take care of people too uninformed or unintelligent to make good lifestyle choices and take care of their health.
I agree with you. The government/other citizens have every right to encourage being healthy. But they should not provide for those who make the choice to be unhealthy, unless it's kids under the age of 12. Kids learn their eating from their parents, so it's really not their fault if they're overweight.
Glenn Beck? The Pilsbury Doughboy? He's just one twinkie away from obesity himself, he's got no room to talk or point fingers.
LOL this guy cracks me up. He's PT Barnum reincarnated.
20yrsinBranson
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