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L.A. Times: Tough love for fat people - 7/28/2009 8:13:14 PM   
Sanity


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Move over, smokers. There aren't nearly enough of you to pay for nationalized health scare...

Sooner or later the majority of people are going to realize that when it comes to the mindset of a certain distinct group of individuals, your body isn't your own - not by any means.


quote:

Tax their food to pay for healthcare


When historians look back to identify the pivotal moments in the nation's struggle against obesity, they might point to the current period as the moment when those who influenced opinion and made public policy decided it was time to take the gloves off.

 As evidence of this new "get-tough" strategy on obesity, they may well cite a study released today by the Urban Institute titled "Reducing Obesity: Policy Strategies From the Tobacco Wars."

In the debate over healthcare reform, the added cost of caring for patients with obesity-related diseases has become a common refrain: most recent is the cost-of-obesity study, also released today by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It finds that as obesity rates increased from 18.3% of Americans in 1998 to 25% in 2006, the cost of providing treatment for those patients' weight-driven problems increased healthcare spending by $40 billion a year.


If you happen to be the 1-in-3 Americans who is neither obese nor overweight (and, thus, considered at risk of becoming obese), you might well conclude that the habits of the remaining two-thirds of Americans are costing you, big time. U.S. life expectancies are expected to slide backward, after years of marching upward. (But that's their statistical problem: Yours is how to make them stop costing you all that extra money because they are presumably making poor choices in their food consumption.)

(More here).


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RE: L.A. Times: Tough love for fat people - 7/29/2009 8:44:31 AM   
servantforuse


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Status: offline 		Our government is already trying to do the same thing. Taxing soft drinks to pay for Obamas health scare...

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RE: L.A. Times: Tough love for fat people - 7/29/2009 10:00:32 AM   
CallaFirestormBW


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Status: offline 		Screw this! I'm sorry, but I'm completely disgusted.

DC


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RE: L.A. Times: Tough love for fat people - 7/29/2009 11:02:15 AM   
Sanity


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Care  to clarify a little bit?


quote:

ORIGINAL: CallaFirestormBW

Screw this! I'm sorry, but I'm completely disgusted.

DC



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RE: L.A. Times: Tough love for fat people - 7/29/2009 2:15:58 PM   
sirsholly


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quote:

If you happen to be the 1-in-3 Americans who is neither obese nor overweight (and, thus, considered at risk of becoming obese)
are we not supposed to argue with the logic (?) that says the obesity problem affects 100% of the US population?

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RE: L.A. Times: Tough love for fat people - 7/29/2009 2:30:00 PM   
servantforuse


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Status: offline 		Just like the smokers, if they are obese they will die sooner and not be on the medicare rolls later. Keep the government out of the grocery stores. They have their hands in enough of our business already.

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RE: L.A. Times: Tough love for fat people - 7/29/2009 3:12:57 PM   
CallaFirestormBW


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Sanity


Care  to clarify a little bit?


quote:

ORIGINAL: CallaFirestormBW

Screw this! I'm sorry, but I'm completely disgusted.

DC






Honestly, I don't know what else to say. Make another law, spread around the blame, marginalize another group -- what the hell, it's for their own good, right

DC

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RE: L.A. Times: Tough love for fat people - 7/29/2009 3:23:25 PM   
nelly33


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Status: offline 		I believe the argument is that it does affect the entire population because of the 40 billion dollar increase in health care costs because of obesity.  It can be analogous to the tax hike in smoking.  Smoking mainly hurts smokers, but a given reason for huge taxes on cigs, at least in New York State where I live, is that emphesyma and associated diseases drive up health care costs.

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RE: L.A. Times: Tough love for fat people - 7/29/2009 3:33:04 PM   
servantforuse


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Status: offline 		That math just never made much sense to me. My aunt in Florida just turned 81. In the last 5 years she has had surgerys that have cost upwards of $800,000.00. That figure is not an exageration. Had she been a smoker and obese she probably would have died 10 years ago and not be on medicare. Live fast, die young and save the rest of us some money.

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RE: L.A. Times: Tough love for fat people - 7/29/2009 3:44:54 PM   
nelly33


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RE: L.A. Times: Tough love for fat people - 7/29/2009 3:44:55 PM   
autoRelease


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Status: offline 		I wouldn't mind this if the money was used to reduce the price of fruits and vegetables. The tax would not be a "punishment" in that case, it would just be good sense. But like that would ever happen...



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RE: L.A. Times: Tough love for fat people - 7/29/2009 3:49:57 PM   
sirsholly


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quote:

believe the argument is that it does affect the entire population because of the 40 billion dollar increase in health care costs because of obesity.
i know. But the wording makes it sound like the disease of obesity effects all of us as a health issue

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RE: L.A. Times: Tough love for fat people - 7/29/2009 3:50:01 PM   
Sanity


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That's a lie though. I don't know for sure about the obese, but smokers die younger and cost society less - for dementia treatment, nursing home care, and so on. People who live to 105 (for example) cost society a fortune...

If you're going to tax anything, why not tax health?


quote:

ORIGINAL: nelly33

I believe the argument is that it does affect the entire population because of the 40 billion dollar increase in health care costs because of obesity.  It can be analogous to the tax hike in smoking.  Smoking mainly hurts smokers, but a given reason for huge taxes on cigs, at least in New York State where I live, is that emphesyma and associated diseases drive up health care costs.



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RE: L.A. Times: Tough love for fat people - 7/29/2009 3:54:05 PM   
sirsholly


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quote:

That's a lie though. I don't know for sure about the obese, but smokers die younger and cost society less - for dementia treatment, nursing home care, and so on. People who live to 105 (for example) cost society a fortune...

If you're going to tax anything, why not tax health?
or age?

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RE: L.A. Times: Tough love for fat people - 7/29/2009 3:59:00 PM   
Starbuck09


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Status: offline 		I think the argument is not about ill health but abuse. If you occasionally smoke you have an elevated chance of respiratory complications. If you smoke 2oo ciggarettes a day you dramatically increase your chances. If you get drunk once a week you increase your chances of liver problems. If you drink 6 bottles of vodka a day you guarantee yourself health problems. If you sometimes eat fatty and junk foods then you have a higher chance of cardiac problems. If you devour 20,000 calories a day again you guarantee yourself problems. Obesity is abuse of food. Just as alcoholism is abuse of alcohol. Therefore the argument is not simply about the costs of maintaining health but of who is more deserving. Recently in the u.k. a young man [22] who had been a chronic alcoholic for 5 years was denied a transplant in favour of someone else on the basis that he was not as deserving [he subsequently has died sadly] as he had abused his body. This debate is not soley about the financial cost.

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RE: L.A. Times: Tough love for fat people - 7/29/2009 4:00:35 PM   
lovingpet


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Status: offline 		So a very simple question.... Why is it that it always costs less to buy processed crap than whole foods? Let's not look in the long run, because unfortunately the money available to me in the checkout line simply is what it is. Fine. Drive up the cost of manufacture all this CRAP and create incentives for getting the good stuff to the shelves as cost effectively as possible. Further, how about finding cures and effective treatments for many illnesses that LEAD to weight gain? Doctors and policymakers are very presumptuous sometimes. Quit blaming a number on a scale for all the woes of society and look at working on the deeper issues. Prevention costs money. Cures don't bring in revenue. Can we say greed boys and girls?

lovingpet

< Message edited by lovingpet -- 7/29/2009 4:06:50 PM >

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RE: L.A. Times: Tough love for fat people - 7/29/2009 4:02:53 PM   
lovingpet


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Starbuck09

Obesity is abuse of food.



Obesity is a medical symptom and nothing more. It could indicate a lack of self control. It could point to poverty. It could be the RESULT of an underlying medical problem. People are so quick to judge.

lovingpet

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RE: L.A. Times: Tough love for fat people - 7/29/2009 4:08:00 PM   
Starbuck09


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Status: offline 		I am not judging loving pet there are indeed a small number of cases where there are medical reasons for being obese, just as one can have underlying medical problems that predispose towards respiratory or cardiac problems. However for the overwhelming majority of cases obesity is an abuse of food. Just as in the overwhelming number of cyrossis cases [sic] are caused by alcohol abuse.  My personal judgement does not come into it if a person consumes vast amounts of calories they will become obese. That is abuse. The fact that the word abuse is somewhat perjorative and can imply judgement does not mean that I am doing so I am only stating a fact loving pet.

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RE: L.A. Times: Tough love for fat people - 7/29/2009 4:20:02 PM   
lovingpet


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Status: offline 		But in a mass sweep of legislation, people who need HELP fall under the penalties that are established. Further, there is plenty that can be done to curb massive caloric intake regardless of self control. Look at ingredients list on things. Look also at the price tag for that item versus the healthier stuff. It's no wonder, especially among those with lesser economic advantage, that people wind up consuming far more calories than they probably really want. Further, the more I go through the medical system the more I see not only that very pervasive medical condition with no good treatments can and do CAUSE obesity in many, but also that society has given medical professionals a bias to use to excuse themselves from helping obese patients. They are written off and told to lose weight. Many of these folks need serious medical intervention in order to ever hope to lose weight. This is a more common issue than folks would like to think.

lovingpet

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RE: L.A. Times: Tough love for fat people - 7/29/2009 4:26:41 PM   
Starbuck09


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Status: offline 		You're quite right that in mass legislation there are always some who lose out just as in the current situation there are those who do not receive what they need. I'm not so sure about the economic argument though loving pet. To be fair I live in Britian so prices might be different but buying vegetables costs next to nothing. Convenience is certainly a factor and often food that is dreadfully bad and calorie laden is readily available and easy to cook. Also I think America has in many ways blazed the trail for obese people [morbidly] to get life saving treatment. The problem is not so much lack of care as it is services being overwhelmed. The spiralling numbers of people with this problem means that prevention rather than cure is the way forward. At least when the numbers have fallen then those who have no chopice but to be obese can get the help they need without being lost in the current morass.

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