The Big C

[Highlander]

"no point in going for..."

Haven't had private for some years - too expensive for me to cover all of us, but I am worth enough in any extreme events... NHS is not as bad as people bleat about; all insurers specify history and previous... having had "history", that would cause most of the well knowns to limit cover... that's business, after all...

There are plenty of "smoke-and-mirrors" issues at the moment... literally, in one case... talk of losing cover for obesity and smoking in the NHS... ie deprioritising people that are unwilling to resolve there own issues - too fat...? forget cover for your colon... smoker...? shame about the lungs...

[dadagoboi]

Kenny, if I read this correctly NHS doesn't cover you for some things you had NO control over and you seem to be OK with that...why should fat people and smokers get a free ride for diseases directly caused by their vices?  I definitely believe the major cause for obesity is unhealthy diet and overindulgence.  It should be treated as a 'preexisting condition' unless maybe someone was born weighing 14 lbs (6Kg).

[uwe]

This is the European whimp socialist speaking, but in my humble opinion a national health insurance that does not cover treatment irrespective of hereditary disposition is the ugliest side of laissez-faire marketism imaginable. I can be talked into not everyone getting teeth implants and other state of the art beautifying achievements, I might even be willing to discuss why the raging alcoholic shouldn't be getting a new liver even though that is already a cynical decision to make, but denying insurance based on hereditary disposition is just vile.

Uwe

[Chaser001]

This is the European whimp socialist speaking, but in my humble opinion a national health insurance that does not cover treatment irrespective of hereditary disposition is the ugliest side of laissez-faire marketism imaginable. I can be talked into not everyone getting teeth implants and other state of the art beautifying achievements, I might even be willing to discuss why the raging alcoholic shouldn't be getting a new liver even though that is already a cynical decision to make, but denying insurance based on hereditary disposition is just vile.

Uwe

+1

[dadagoboi]

Uwe, do you consider obesity a hereditary disposition?

[uwe]

In many cases it is, if you come from a family who put on every calory they lay a glimpse on you had it good in medieval times when hunger raged, but these days you don't meet the ideal nor do we have starvation periods in the western world where a little fat put on in good times can mean survival in bad. If you have thyroid issues, it's hereditary too. If you are eating junk food all day, chances are you grew up that way and learned the wrong eating from your parents. Besides obesity is a civilisation illness of a majority or a least a large minority of people, they live in circumstances that enhance the risk of eating too much and/or the wrong things and working too little of it off physically. We're not hunting mammoths in the snow anymore, yet we still eat as if we did. We all profit from modern over-abundance of food (in some, not all areas of the world) in one way or another, so it makes sense to socialize the affiliated risk for some within reason. Yes, they could avoid their illness/affliction if they really tried, but would you stop treating people in a third world slum for bacteria diseases because you've told them a thousand times to cook their drinking water and they still don't do it even if all they would need to do is put a plastic bottle filled with water out in the son for two days or three? People act irresponsibly all the time, everyone does at one time or another. It's a tough call to deny healthcare for victims of their own doing. No emergency operation for a drunk driver? And what if it is your son? No treatment for the survivor of a suicide attempt or a gang shooting? No  treatment for the obese and while we're at it no tratement for the anorectic girl next door either? All she has to do is eat right ... Let's not even go there.

I have never been a smoker in all my life, but it is for the reasons above that I'm not one to applaud that cigarette smokers should bear their own nicotine- and tar-induced healthcare costs. Too often sickness and disease has multiple causes, I think it is a civilisational achievement to have the community and not the individual shoulder the consequences. Ayn Rand would disagree, I know.

[sniper]

if one would consider promiscuity or "unhealthy" lifestyles such as gay and lesbianism a product of hereditary disposition when treating aids and a reason to be denied, then it is about judging choices! perhaps the addicted newborn or victims of mental health problems should be excluded?

a disease is a disease and everyone should be afforded the best care possible regardless, period!

i don't need any of the "kiss the air by your ear and call you darling while giving you a hug" frigging beautiful people who judge on racism, Muslims, Jews, matters of faith, the poor, unfortunates, politics, heredity or anyone who is "different".

A+ on your definition of civilizations responsibilities Uwe.

and i cherish my lesbian daughter.

screw Ayn Rand.

[dadagoboi]

The problem as I see it is that resources are not unlimited.  The amount of money being devoted to diabetes and other obesity related diseases in the U.S. is astronomical and growing.  Ignorance and gluttony, not genetics, are the causes of this development in at the most 2 generations.  Yes, with unlimited resources treat every ailment but lacking that educate the population so that 5 year olds won't be developing diabetes and a large minority of teens won't be obese.  American food manufacturers are behind the status quo.  Ayn Rand is the patron saint of this laissez faire capitalism gone wild. 

[Chaser001]

if one would consider promiscuity or "unhealthy" lifestyles such as gay and lesbianism a product of hereditary disposition when treating aids and a reason to be denied, then it is about judging choices! perhaps the addicted newborn or victims of mental health problems should be excluded?

a disease is a disease and everyone should be afforded the best care possible regardless, period!

i don't need any of the "kiss the air by your ear and call you darling while giving you a hug" frigging beautiful people who judge on racism, Muslims, Jews, matters of faith, the poor, unfortunates, politics, heredity or anyone who is "different".

A+ on your definition of civilizations responsibilities Uwe.

and i cherish my lesbian daughter.

screw Ayn Rand.

And I cherish my lesbian friends. 

[Chaser001]

The problem as I see it is that resources are not unlimited.  The amount of money being devoted to diabetes and other obesity related diseases in the U.S. is astronomical and growing.  Ignorance and gluttony, not genetics, are the causes of this development in at the most 2 generations.  Yes, with unlimited resources treat every ailment but lacking that educate the population so that 5 year olds won't be developing diabetes and a large minority of teens won't be obese.  American food manufacturers are behind the status quo.  Ayn Rand is the patron saint of this laissez faire capitalism gone wild. 

Ayn Rand bites. 

[sniper]

i am not convinced Ayn Rand is all she is credited with being. certianly not a valid patron saint IMO but probably one who has voiced at least one side of the argument for altruism that again IMO started with the industrial revolution. she brought the idea forward to people in her books, specifically the idea of 'The Art of Selfishness'.

i find it refreshing that people are actually thinking and asking about "resources" and then they are looking at other ways to solve a problem after the idea of demagoguery presents itself and hopefully it will run out of steam while the person asking "why?', is still rational and before an illogical judgement can be inacted. maybe we will eventually get off our duffs.

artists have generally observed, asked and created before others have thought to ask. that might be our job.

just don't give me any of that "law and order" logical bullshit as the basis of inhumanity to others. it will have to get better for all because we cannot survive nor advance standing alone, paraphrasing Franklin, another creative person.

[Dave W]

Let's not let Uwe's remark about Ayn Rand lead us into political territory.

Don't get me going on the bogus "obesity epidemic". Calling it an epidemic implies that it's contagious and somehow beyond our control. That's a load. The amount of food the average American eats today is several times more than we ate when I was a kid. That's why we weigh more and have more diseases associated with obesity. A calorie is a calorie is a calorie. Unless you have a specific glandular dysfunction, it's in your power to eat less.

I'm not condemning the obese and I don't think governments ought to be withholding medical treatment from people based on their weight. But I don't want to hear that people can't help it.

[Pilgrim]

As an aside, what little I know of Ayn Rand tends to make me discount pretty much any ideas she had.  Not my cup of tea.

I agree with Dave - most obesity is self-inflicted.  Walk through a Wal-Mart and it's pretty obvious.  People just eat too much, and they make every excuse...but it's mostly B.S.

I'm not exempted, either...I graduated from college at 170 lbs and just dropped 12 pounds to back off from 202 down to 190.  Being 60 years old is no excuse, either.  I'd be a lot better off at 180.

[Chaser001]

I look at Ayn Rand as more of a philosophical lightweight than a political figure.  She is a perfect example of why America should completely stay out of philosophy and focus on things we're really good at, such as having celebrity scandals.  Ayn Rand seriously thought her philosophy challenged that of Immanuel Kant.  A philosophical match between Kant and Rand would be about like a military match between Russia and Costa Rica. 

[uwe]

"Ayn Rand" (who is largely unknown in Europe, even in the most conservative or laissez faire capitalist quarters, I'm always surprised how much she rings a bell with people here, this must be the most educated forum in the world!) is just my acronym for a radical, pure-to-the-bone,  Darwinistic outlook on life, society and economy. I see her as a purely theoretical thinker largely influenced and explained by her own childhood/youth experiences with "collectivism" (or what came in the guise of it) under Stalin in Russia (where she came from before her parents took her to America). She was never a practicing politician and her one-trick-recipe cannot ever work with humans just a communism can't. We're tribal animals by nature - like all primates - and not lonely predators that only meet a species member of the opposite sex once a year to mate and ensure survival of the species. A society built on her principles would be doomed to failure, an "Ayn Rand state" an oxymoron because she is all about atomizing society and discarding the glue that holds us together because she saw that as an impediment to human individual development away from the collectivist herd animal. I think she realized that inherent self-destruction element of her thinking which is why she shunned a wider political role and saw her theories more as an ointment to be used sparingly in a Roosevelt America where "the big state" was not yet a four-letter word.

She was no Immanuel Kant, no Karl Marx and no Adam Smith. But her theories are interesting in the same way that study of the isolated plague virus is interesting and enlightening for science. For good reason, she is not a serious contemporary political influence, Tea Party members are glowing socialists in comparison to her, her ideas "work" only under laboratory conditions.

Someone mentioned resources. It is true, a healthcare system available to all has to be affordable and that means that it cannot give everything to everyone, but it should give the same to all - if you want or need more (and can afford it) there is (Ayn Rand will breathe a sigh of relief from her hopefully solitary situated grave) additional private health insurance.

As such health education is of course key and people must be alerted about their wrong eating habits though - make no mistake - eating more than we need when there is enough of it around is biologically triggered in us. Any animal will gain weight in surroundings where food is affluent, I just need to take a look at some of my reptiles! (Though even members of the same species do not gain or lose the same amount of weight under identical living conditions.) That is not to say that you cannot consciously decide against it, but it is a decision against an archaic urge and not all people are equally good at reining that urge.

Allocation of money within a healthcare system is another issue. There are non-Darwinist people out there who say that if a health care system refused heart transplants and used all that
saved money to improve sterile conditions and general hyghiene in hospitals hundred of thousands or even millions of people would be saved rather than just a few thousand through heart transplants. It's a kind of triage thinking: If you have limited resources apply them where they generate the greatest benefit for the greatest number of people with the greatest chance of success (don't operate the soldier with the stomach wound, he'll likely die, the operation will take too much time and he is just one), but rather care for the many lightly wounded waiting outside the tent so that they don't die from infections. You can't argue with  the statistics of that, but can it be decided humanely? Immanuel and Ayn probably couldn't agree on that one either. Don't try explaining it to a heart patient either.

Uwe

Ps: with a thankful nod to Neil Peart for introducing him first to the mind world of Ayn Rand.

PPS: I have a hunch that ole Ayn, though she had officially a hetero-relationship/marriage, was a, what's the official term used here again?, a, uhum, "doughnut bumper" too. Being lesbian doesn't prevent you from having irksome political concepts. ; - )