Quote:
Originally Posted by Professor S
2) Equity. Everyone pays, but what if one person is a marathon runner and eats only organic brocolli, and someone else loves vodka, smokes and twinkies? Is that "fair"? Will healthy eating and weightloss be made legal mandates or a fineable offense? If so, who makes those determinations and what exactly will they be? Will regular checkups become an obligation that is enforceable? Will sin taxes be added to items that are deemed a detriment to our health? This is the problem whe people make the mistake of mixing the "right" of healthare with public funding.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TheGame
I don't think that is something that you should fear. We're already the most over weight country in the world as is, the most I could see happening is the doctors promoting fitness but not enforcing it. But even when you consider that, the country as-is is still horrible when it comes to health. How dare the government care about people's health!
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http://www.infoplease.com/world/statistics/obesity.html
We are actually the
9th fattest country. What would be more interesting to look at is annual deaths from conditions like Diabetes and Heart Disease. You could make the case that this country suffers from a ton of deaths from weight disorders:
http://www.the-eggman.com/writings/death_stats.html
Major Cardiovasular Diseases being the number 1 cause of death and diabetes being the number 4 cause.
Again, though, these statistics would need to be weighed against other country's statistics.
I do believe a moral issue would arise (should the public have to pay for the quadruple bypass of someone who chose their lifestyle?). Besides pointing out that you neglected to rebuttal the moral premise of 'the exploitative unhealthy body' in social health care that Prof S made, I ask; how could doctors or the government enforce exercise? I ask this question not with debate in mind but simply to suggest public health care or not, the weight epidemic will continue to be an epidemic.
Edit: I do also want to clarify that it's not so much an "epidemic" as a social reaction to our lifestyles and diets. The term epidemic does not do the complicated problem that obesity is justice. Furthermore, the BMI scale used to determine obesity is flawed and that is (IMO) a factor in the inflated obesity statistics. But that really is irrelevant in this discussion...I just didn't want anyone to think I felt a particular way about the way people weigh.
