Smoke : Drink or Drugs : Insurance cost blow outs
Should smokers, alcoholics, drug takers etc who continue to abuse their bodies, be allowed to take out medical & social insurance that is subsidised by the government..?
Across the world many public health & hospital systems are groaning under the weight of such health related issues, & ( non-imbibers, & non smokers etc ) all over the world are forced to pay for such BAD habits..
Is it time health insurance companies & governments got really tough and said " you smoke etc..NO coverage "
Maybe governments should say....
" If you want to smoke etc go ahead, but you fork out 100% for all future medical bills that can be shown to be a consequence of your own negligence....."
Across the world many public health & hospital systems are groaning under the weight of such health related issues, & ( non-imbibers, & non smokers etc ) all over the world are forced to pay for such BAD habits..
Is it time health insurance companies & governments got really tough and said " you smoke etc..NO coverage "
Maybe governments should say....
" If you want to smoke etc go ahead, but you fork out 100% for all future medical bills that can be shown to be a consequence of your own negligence....."
Comments
Originally posted by BR
You would then have to do the same thing with people who eat too many twinkies, drive too fast, or like scuba diving or whitewater rafting.
Especially Twinky eaters.....
Nick
Personally, I'm in favor of a system that can help. But the more complex the system gets the more bureaucracy gets in the way. To me, helping with health care is a good way to protect the country, like having an army. In the long run it might limit our max potential because some money is diverted, but more people will be better off because of it.
Originally posted by trumptman
When you want government to pay for you lifestyle, then you want government to dictate your lifestyle.
Nick
That's sophistry.
Originally posted by Harald
That's sophistry.
How so? They attempt to regulate drugs, smoking, alcohol, and more and more food. You are welcome to show any areas you think they are reversing or not pursuing a course of action.
Nick
Originally posted by trumptman
How so? They attempt to regulate drugs, smoking, alcohol, and more and more food. You are welcome to show any areas you think they are reversing or not pursuing a course of action.
Nick
In society we live in a restricted individual liberty. But this is not automatically interelated with subsidies.
Its the job of any governenemt, to fight drugs, smoking, alcohol everything that is bad for society in general, even if it's also a restriction of individual liberty. But it's not because that a gov subsidise for example the health that smoking, alcohol woud be prohibited. It's the case in France, but smoking or being drunk night and day would not fired you from the health public insurance system.
But as BR pointed out, if you start to ban from public health insurance people who smoke or take alcohol, you should also ban people who drive to fast, that eat too much fat, who are under stress .... You should ban everyone.
that's why the public system warrant every people, fools or not.
Originally posted by burningwheel
insurance companies turn down people with pre-exisitng conditions. smokers, alcoholics and druggies should be the same. these are pre-exisitng conditions
Turning down people with pre-existing conditions isn't a good thing.
Alcoholism and drug addiction are, as you say, 'conditions' or diseases and I find it slightly distateful to marginalize the sufferers as being to blame for their own problems while money is being spent on fat people, stressed executives, infertile couples etc. (nothing against these groups of course, but why should thin, fertile hippies be subsidizing them?)
Socialized medicine is a massive success around the world and memes like this are part of a concerted attack on the concept. It is very much a case of:
First they came for the Communists,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn’t a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn’t a Jew.
Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me,
and by that time there was no one
left to speak up for me.
Don't let Republicans and their ilk blind you with greed and envy, and divide and conquer you by race, religion, sexual orientation or any other criteria. By working together you can make it better for everyone.
Originally posted by trumptman
When you want government to pay for you lifestyle, then you want government to dictate your lifestyle.
Nick
No.... that sounds more like good olde fashioned socialism
Originally posted by trumptman
How so? They attempt to regulate drugs, smoking, alcohol, and more and more food. You are welcome to show any areas you think they are reversing or not pursuing a course of action.
Nick
Government pays for your roads, police, army, schools and a bunch of other things too (from your input).
So it's sophistry: you don't think there's any problem about dictating your lifestyle by building roads, but without roads your lifestyle would be pretty damn different.
It's only healthcare that conservatives have a problem with for some reason. Survival of the fittest and all that. But the US has the most per-capita poverty of any of the industrialised nations (and I can supply source) despite being the richest. If you had your way and subsidised healthcare went, you'd also have a health crisis and as much social trouble as if the roads vanished. Think about it.