I’m not willing to take up the cost of that person being sick because its self inflicted…
Its not fare to me and has nothing to do with discrimination
Smokers create TERMINAL illnesses that I would have to pay for, for the rest of the suffering person’s miserable life while they either end up on dissability or chemotherapy, radiation, and surgeries.
I was a smoker. So, please… Understand that I don’t think I’m better than someone who smokes, but the statistics speak for themselves and money lost is money lost.
Let’s keep our insurance costs down and increase productivity in the work place while keeping the moral up with healthy non smoking people.
Nicotine is an extremely addictive narcotic. Tobacco, ecf/casaa (same difference) companies are, in effect, dr ug-pushers. Their income depends on keeping millions of Americans hooked.
I was insured through my workplace, had a BMI of 54 (super morbidly obese) with several health issues – severe GERD Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease, severe Obstructive Sleep Apnea, High Blood Pressure, and a host of other issues related to obesity, all of which were being treated by my doctors and costing my insurance company and myself thousands and thousands of dollars. All the while I was repeatedly denied any weight loss related treatments: no weight loss or fitness programs, nutrition classes, pharmaceuticals, therapy, nothing related to the treatment of weight loss was covered and I was denied weight loss surgery even though I was told by my doctors that many of the painful, debilitating, and life threatening conditions impacting my health would be potentially relieved and that having weight loss surgery was the best option.
I’ve since self paid for weight loss surgery. My before and after http://www.theworldaccordingtoeggface.com The 158 pound weight loss I achieved resolved all my health issues, I am off all 8 medications I was on prior to surgery, I have not been to the doctor for anything more than routine check-ups in the 5 years since surgery, all of which are a considerable savings to my insurance company. I hope to continue to live a healthy life and am happy with my decision to self-pay thankfully I was financially able to but merely saying “you need to lose weight” without giving people the weapons to fight is not going to win this war against obesity or keep costs down. Prevention and treatment must go hand in hand.
Michelle, congratulations on your weight loss. I just went to your link and found all the information and recepies very interesting. You are living proof that you can turn your health around as well as your life. I guess both would go hand-in-hand.
Shelly, what a great accomplishment! Myself and my 12 year old son are both overweight and when I read your list about things sucking because your fat that hit the nail right on the head! Thanks so much for sharing your story and providing ideas on your website. I hope to share this info with my family this evening.
yeah, my company made smokers pay a premium last year for smoking (but to get out of it, all they had to do was lie and say they didn’t smoke)They were told a year ahead that the surcharge was coming.
This year they went after the overweight. Just came into the office for our blood, waist measurement, weight and blood pressue. No advance warning. Just gonna charge more to folks who are fat.
No excuses accepted. Doesn’t matter if you are addressing your health issues with your primary care doctor. You just pay more.
I always thought the idea of a group health plan was that it was the group that was evaluated, not the individual.
So, next year I guess they will go after the cancer survivors. Lord knows they have already cost money and will cost more in the future.
It’ll basically end when there are enough lawsuits filed and won by the employees.
That being said, your employer has no right to bring people in without notice to administer what amounts to medical exams. The ACLU would’ve been all over that.
The simplest response to someone getting all touchy/grabby with me would be to say “Don’t touch me.”
If they made a move to still touch me I’d then say “If you try to touch me again, that is the legal definition of ‘battery’ and I will defend myself appropriately, and *then* have you arrested.”
Then I’d call the police and advise them that there are unwanted people in the office trying to practice medicine without legal consent.
Then I’d call the ACLU and if I got any grief about it from my boss I’d get an ACLU-backed lawsuit up and running.
They may pay my salary, but I work damned hard for it and make them a lot of money. Employers aren’t gods, even in this crappy economic period.
We’ve been tossing away personal rights and freedoms for 10 years now. It’s about time that crap stopped.
People can lie on their applications, but if they ever beome diagnosed with a disease that is smoking related, they also can be denied coverage for that particular disease. Doctors aren’t stupid and they can tell if a patient is a smoker or a non-smoker. Everyone in a group plan still has to go through underwriting. The evaluation is based on all the applicants and a group rate is applied. It is medically proven that smokers and people who are obese are a higher risk then the non-smokers and people who are height and weight proportioned. However, cancer can strike anyone at anytime, healthy or not.
I have given my employees a 15% incentive for not smoking. An additional 15% on both the EE rate and the dependent rate. A non smoker only contributes 10% of the cost for the ee portion and 25% of the dependent portion. I was asked how do I know if the smoke or not. An employee asked what would stop an employee from saying that they didn’t smoke, but they actually did. My reply: If you lied and took money that did not belong to you and I found out about it, that is theft and they are terminated for dishonesty. 2 smokers changed their status that afternoon. Real Mom – are you taking money to which you are not entitled?
The State of Oregon employees benefit board has implemented a plan to surcharge the employees for their unhealthy behavior. If you are a female and your waist is 34 inches or greater or if you are a male with a 40 inch waist or greater, you will be surcharged. The health assessment is 20 pages and they ask information on how many days a week you eat red meat, cheeses, etc and how many days a week your drinking soda, beer, wine, etc. The real issue in regards to this program is that if you are a spouse of an employee and you are insured in this plan, and have other health insurance available, they will also charge the employee 50.00 per month. What is really unfair about this is the State of Oregon open enrollment is January. My plan is July and I cannot opt into my plan until July because I have health insurance available! If I were a stay at home spouse my husband would not be surcharged at all! Seems really unfair that working women are being penalized under this plan. This was dropped on the state employees after the contact was settled. When I contacted the PEBB board they advised because they went self insured last year, they do not have enough money to pay their claims.. hence the surcharges. Being an insurance agent we could have told them this would happen. Whom ever is their agent and consultant should be fired!
We wouldn’t have to have any of these arguments if we weren’t the only modern industrialized coutry in the world that doesn’t provide at least basic care for its citizens…
I’m just saying.
You say giving medical care to ppor people is too expensive. I say a $1.2+ trillion annual defense budget to bomb countries 95% of Americans can’t find on a map is too expensive.
I have yet to hear someone honestly say “It is too expensive to give medical care to poor people”. That is a strawman if I ever heard one.
If you are trying to say that we need a public option for health care, the people that are against the public option bill that was proposed had two main arguments.
1. The bill did not address the COST of health care
2. It should be up to the states if they want to mandate a public option, not the federal government.
This is directed at everyone that likes to strawman the people that are against ObamaCare.
The end of the article makes no sense. The article refers to not wanting to penalize people with factors beyone their control, then says “that’s the case for …” a SMOKER !!! This is not a factor beyond their control. Then they quote her salary and how she’s going to have to cut back on Christmas. So she can still afford to buy cigarettes, but not Christmas or family vacations. Quit your whining and quit smoking if you want to have money for these things. If your priorities are that screwed up, you deserve what you don’t get. These changes are long overdue.
My only other comment is that maybe there should be credits for healthy behavior as well as penalties for unhealthy behavior, maybe these could offset the penalties. For example, not drinking alcohol, not drinking soda, eating less meat, exercising every day, even if overweight, is still healthier than not.
I assume, MP, that you refer to a government run health care system such as is found in the UK. I have lost 4 family members to the UK system in the last 10 years. In each case it was decided that if you are over 65 and no longer contributing to the tax base, your life has no purpose and hi tech or expensive procedures will be witheld. They don’t call it a death panel but the National Institute for Clinical Excellence makes these decisions.
I will resist government run health care till I die.
Or at least until you get cancer and spend the last 12 months of your life getting hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of chemotherapy and radiation treatments.
You guys in the US wanted that kind of system, you have it….so suck it up. What do you expect from a profit based system, treat everybody the same? Weed out the weak, great system as long as you don’t get sick. Your still back in the 18th century.
If you smoke cigarettes, your health will be compromised. I was a smoker -it was very, very hard to quit.
If you eat junk food, fatty food, pies, cookies & candy everyday, your health will be compromised. You WILL get fat!
This is not rocket science, folks. It’s common sense. If you believe it’s your right to be fat, so be it. I however, do not wish to take care of your fat -ss while you’re stuffing sausage & cake into your face. I’m tired of the disability parking spaces being filled with obese people who waddle into the grocery to fill their carts with gawdawful food. I’m sick of looking at humungeous people spilling over the sides of little motorized carts while they’re shopping or tooling around.
It’s a bunch of hooey when people say – I hardly eat a thing, yet I still gain weight. awk! Pleeez-
Let’s start educating people about healthy eating & caring for our bodies.
The people in our country are embarrassing. If we had to pull together to defend ourselves in our own land or address some sort of major crisis, we’d be screwed – there are so many of us who can’t get from the car to the front door without getting winded.
Harsh words? Yeah. So put out your cigarette, wipe the donut crumbs off your chin and go take a walk! Oh wait – just one walk won’t do it…it’ll have to be daily. Some folks might need clarification on that. “I dieted for a whole day and just can’t seem to lose weight”.
Dee – I agree 100%. People have the ability to put down the Twinkie if they so choose. If you are fat, you didn’t get that way by eating celery and carrots. You ate your way to the fat pants by stuffing your face with cookies, microwave popcorn, fast food and soda. Get off your butt and exercise. I believe if people want to be fat lazy sloths, they have a right. By the same token, we should have a right to not pay for the fat @sses medical bills.
What about risky sexual behavior? Condom use? What about those that sky-dive on the weekends? Fast food junkies who may not be fat? Alcoholics or drug users? Those with a genetic predisposition to certain illnesses? Should we just use DNA checks on everyone to determine eligibility for health services? Did you get all your vacinations when you were a kid? Been to any 3rd world countries lately? I’m not saying being overweight is okay, but there are a lot of other health “crimes” that could be pointed out. I agree with the person above — this is the beginning of a very slippery slope.
It’s a slippery slope there people. First smokers, then obese people…what next? Diabetics? Persons with heart disease or other chronic disorders? and so on down the line until the employees in their 20’s complain that those in their 50’s and 60’s should pay more because older people come down with more illnesses.
I agree with Retro Man. It is a slippery slope- What about alcohol usage/abuse. If you drink , should you pay more for health coverage, afterall, you are more likely to develop liver problems, get into an auto accident (& exceed your auto medical limit). I am a smoker and I know it’s a choice & will pay more for my health care, but it is a alsippery sople, who will they target next?
I submit that the majority with diabetes and other chronic diseases are obese -which is a huge contributing factor, excuse the pun, if not the major cause, to many diseases.
Not all who are diseased are obese, I know this from family experience.
Not everyone with heart disease smokes or over eats.
Let’s not ‘enable’ or pussyfoot around the issue of obesity because we all have friends and loved ones who are. It is a very, very serious problem.
And to the inquiry about my weightloss plan: Well, when I gain a few pounds I quit shoveling so much food in my face and get some additional exercise. Because really, whining about the fact that I can’t eat as much pizza or drink as much beer as I used to doesn’t accomplish a darned thing.
Whining is not a weight loss plan…
I’m not saying it is preferable or good in any way to be overweight (or to over anything, btw), but there is always a reason behind people’s compulsive behavior. I wonder if you would have this same mentality toward an anorexic? An anorexic is statistically more likely to have health problems than an obese person. Is this okay since they aren’t a “fat, lazy slob?” Or is this really just about your bias against fat people? That may not be true of you, but it sure does sound like it. And also, I’m wondering how’s your cholesterol? Blood pressure? Any family history of heart attack, stroke, cancer? I’m just saying…
If this is a duplicate-forgive me. I agree with Retro Man- It is a slippery slope. What about those who consume alcolhol? They are more at risk for liver problems and other alcohol related illnesses. That too, is a lifestyle choice. They cost insurance companies alot more money as well- get into an auto accident & exceed your auto medical limits, then your poor health care provider had to kick in for some fool who got behind the wheel and hurt himself & others.
Most child psychologists will tell you the same thing. To make behaviorial changes, don’t punish bad behavior. Reward good behavior. So rather than punish people who cost the healthcare system more, reward those who cost it less. Let there be an incentive to living a healthy lifestyle. The other side of the coin is this. If people are getting healthier, then I damn well better see my insurance costs go down! Fat chance of that happening, though.
Until we control the healthcare fiasco in this country this will continue. Take the money out of the equation by offering free health care for all and guess what? This would not happen! A true liabilty claim will be required to go to court based on true facts not bought opinions. Imagine, medicine that is based on healing in lieu of who has the most money?
And..Since when did my employer and that giant Wal Mart become my “big brother”? Next they will tell me my light skin is prone to certain skin cancers and I need to stay out of the sun so I can’t go on vacation in certain areas known for excessive sun rays….
1. If money is not involved in health care, how do doctors get paid? Nurses? Orderlies? Manufaturers of medical goods and equipment? Should they just all work for free? Take out the profit margin for the medical professionals, and you’ll be extreemly short staffed on medical professinals because why would someone go to school for 8+ years not to have finacial stability later in life?
2. I agree with you that med mal cases should be based on ture facts, not opinions, but until you take a case to court, how can you determine what is fact and opinion?
3. Acutally, healing in this country is based upon the hypocratic oath. Emergency care hospitals will take people in, regardless on their ability to pay.
It is refreshing to see people like Todd and Retro man bring up the other behaviours that affect health, but are PC so OK.
Putting aside STDs or sky diving, or motorcycle riding as cost drivers, what about the potential costs of being healthy?
Will workers’ compensation be available to employees who cannot work due to an injury sustained in the Gym? (bad knees being the new carpal tunnel)
Can an employer be sued if an employee has a heart attack in the gym? (they forced me to jazzersize and I felt pain on my side)
What about sexual harassment charges when an executive starts to date a personal trainer? (be nice to that guy, his company keeps this gym afloat with the employee’s membership fees)
Lastly, our knowledge of medicine in always changing. When I entered the workforce, Ulcers were thought to be the result of bad diet, coffee, stress and smoking. Now we know ulcers are caused by viruses. What if running past age forty is a direct path to needing expensive treatments vs. stationary bikes? Or what if a stationary bike is a direct line to some urinary problem?
Effective immediately there will be a non-stop, smoke-a-thon in front of all health care buildings. Smokers are encouraged to chain smoke without interruption for weeks on end. Fast food delivery will be available to sustain you. This is an added cost and we encourage you to please put your cigarett butts and trash in the proper receptacles.
I’m not willing to take up the cost of that person being sick because its self inflicted…
Its not fare to me and has nothing to do with discrimination
Smokers create TERMINAL illnesses that I would have to pay for, for the rest of the suffering person’s miserable life while they either end up on dissability or chemotherapy, radiation, and surgeries.
I was a smoker. So, please… Understand that I don’t think I’m better than someone who smokes, but the statistics speak for themselves and money lost is money lost.
Let’s keep our insurance costs down and increase productivity in the work place while keeping the moral up with healthy non smoking people.
Nicotine is an extremely addictive narcotic. Tobacco, ecf/casaa (same difference) companies are, in effect, dr ug-pushers. Their income depends on keeping millions of Americans hooked.
I was insured through my workplace, had a BMI of 54 (super morbidly obese) with several health issues – severe GERD Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease, severe Obstructive Sleep Apnea, High Blood Pressure, and a host of other issues related to obesity, all of which were being treated by my doctors and costing my insurance company and myself thousands and thousands of dollars. All the while I was repeatedly denied any weight loss related treatments: no weight loss or fitness programs, nutrition classes, pharmaceuticals, therapy, nothing related to the treatment of weight loss was covered and I was denied weight loss surgery even though I was told by my doctors that many of the painful, debilitating, and life threatening conditions impacting my health would be potentially relieved and that having weight loss surgery was the best option.
I’ve since self paid for weight loss surgery. My before and after http://www.theworldaccordingtoeggface.com The 158 pound weight loss I achieved resolved all my health issues, I am off all 8 medications I was on prior to surgery, I have not been to the doctor for anything more than routine check-ups in the 5 years since surgery, all of which are a considerable savings to my insurance company. I hope to continue to live a healthy life and am happy with my decision to self-pay thankfully I was financially able to but merely saying “you need to lose weight” without giving people the weapons to fight is not going to win this war against obesity or keep costs down. Prevention and treatment must go hand in hand.
Michelle, congratulations on your weight loss. I just went to your link and found all the information and recepies very interesting. You are living proof that you can turn your health around as well as your life. I guess both would go hand-in-hand.
Shelly, what a great accomplishment! Myself and my 12 year old son are both overweight and when I read your list about things sucking because your fat that hit the nail right on the head! Thanks so much for sharing your story and providing ideas on your website. I hope to share this info with my family this evening.
yeah, my company made smokers pay a premium last year for smoking (but to get out of it, all they had to do was lie and say they didn’t smoke)They were told a year ahead that the surcharge was coming.
This year they went after the overweight. Just came into the office for our blood, waist measurement, weight and blood pressue. No advance warning. Just gonna charge more to folks who are fat.
No excuses accepted. Doesn’t matter if you are addressing your health issues with your primary care doctor. You just pay more.
I always thought the idea of a group health plan was that it was the group that was evaluated, not the individual.
So, next year I guess they will go after the cancer survivors. Lord knows they have already cost money and will cost more in the future.
Where will it end???
It’ll basically end when there are enough lawsuits filed and won by the employees.
That being said, your employer has no right to bring people in without notice to administer what amounts to medical exams. The ACLU would’ve been all over that.
The simplest response to someone getting all touchy/grabby with me would be to say “Don’t touch me.”
If they made a move to still touch me I’d then say “If you try to touch me again, that is the legal definition of ‘battery’ and I will defend myself appropriately, and *then* have you arrested.”
Then I’d call the police and advise them that there are unwanted people in the office trying to practice medicine without legal consent.
Then I’d call the ACLU and if I got any grief about it from my boss I’d get an ACLU-backed lawsuit up and running.
They may pay my salary, but I work damned hard for it and make them a lot of money. Employers aren’t gods, even in this crappy economic period.
We’ve been tossing away personal rights and freedoms for 10 years now. It’s about time that crap stopped.
People can lie on their applications, but if they ever beome diagnosed with a disease that is smoking related, they also can be denied coverage for that particular disease. Doctors aren’t stupid and they can tell if a patient is a smoker or a non-smoker. Everyone in a group plan still has to go through underwriting. The evaluation is based on all the applicants and a group rate is applied. It is medically proven that smokers and people who are obese are a higher risk then the non-smokers and people who are height and weight proportioned. However, cancer can strike anyone at anytime, healthy or not.
I have given my employees a 15% incentive for not smoking. An additional 15% on both the EE rate and the dependent rate. A non smoker only contributes 10% of the cost for the ee portion and 25% of the dependent portion. I was asked how do I know if the smoke or not. An employee asked what would stop an employee from saying that they didn’t smoke, but they actually did. My reply: If you lied and took money that did not belong to you and I found out about it, that is theft and they are terminated for dishonesty. 2 smokers changed their status that afternoon. Real Mom – are you taking money to which you are not entitled?
The State of Oregon employees benefit board has implemented a plan to surcharge the employees for their unhealthy behavior. If you are a female and your waist is 34 inches or greater or if you are a male with a 40 inch waist or greater, you will be surcharged. The health assessment is 20 pages and they ask information on how many days a week you eat red meat, cheeses, etc and how many days a week your drinking soda, beer, wine, etc. The real issue in regards to this program is that if you are a spouse of an employee and you are insured in this plan, and have other health insurance available, they will also charge the employee 50.00 per month. What is really unfair about this is the State of Oregon open enrollment is January. My plan is July and I cannot opt into my plan until July because I have health insurance available! If I were a stay at home spouse my husband would not be surcharged at all! Seems really unfair that working women are being penalized under this plan. This was dropped on the state employees after the contact was settled. When I contacted the PEBB board they advised because they went self insured last year, they do not have enough money to pay their claims.. hence the surcharges. Being an insurance agent we could have told them this would happen. Whom ever is their agent and consultant should be fired!
We wouldn’t have to have any of these arguments if we weren’t the only modern industrialized coutry in the world that doesn’t provide at least basic care for its citizens…
I’m just saying.
You say giving medical care to ppor people is too expensive. I say a $1.2+ trillion annual defense budget to bomb countries 95% of Americans can’t find on a map is too expensive.
I have yet to hear someone honestly say “It is too expensive to give medical care to poor people”. That is a strawman if I ever heard one.
If you are trying to say that we need a public option for health care, the people that are against the public option bill that was proposed had two main arguments.
1. The bill did not address the COST of health care
2. It should be up to the states if they want to mandate a public option, not the federal government.
This is directed at everyone that likes to strawman the people that are against ObamaCare.
The end of the article makes no sense. The article refers to not wanting to penalize people with factors beyone their control, then says “that’s the case for …” a SMOKER !!! This is not a factor beyond their control. Then they quote her salary and how she’s going to have to cut back on Christmas. So she can still afford to buy cigarettes, but not Christmas or family vacations. Quit your whining and quit smoking if you want to have money for these things. If your priorities are that screwed up, you deserve what you don’t get. These changes are long overdue.
My only other comment is that maybe there should be credits for healthy behavior as well as penalties for unhealthy behavior, maybe these could offset the penalties. For example, not drinking alcohol, not drinking soda, eating less meat, exercising every day, even if overweight, is still healthier than not.
Actually, moderate consumption of alcohol has been shown to be healthier than tee-totalling.
I assume, MP, that you refer to a government run health care system such as is found in the UK. I have lost 4 family members to the UK system in the last 10 years. In each case it was decided that if you are over 65 and no longer contributing to the tax base, your life has no purpose and hi tech or expensive procedures will be witheld. They don’t call it a death panel but the National Institute for Clinical Excellence makes these decisions.
I will resist government run health care till I die.
Or at least until you get cancer and spend the last 12 months of your life getting hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of chemotherapy and radiation treatments.
You guys in the US wanted that kind of system, you have it….so suck it up. What do you expect from a profit based system, treat everybody the same? Weed out the weak, great system as long as you don’t get sick. Your still back in the 18th century.
If you smoke cigarettes, your health will be compromised. I was a smoker -it was very, very hard to quit.
If you eat junk food, fatty food, pies, cookies & candy everyday, your health will be compromised. You WILL get fat!
This is not rocket science, folks. It’s common sense. If you believe it’s your right to be fat, so be it. I however, do not wish to take care of your fat -ss while you’re stuffing sausage & cake into your face. I’m tired of the disability parking spaces being filled with obese people who waddle into the grocery to fill their carts with gawdawful food. I’m sick of looking at humungeous people spilling over the sides of little motorized carts while they’re shopping or tooling around.
It’s a bunch of hooey when people say – I hardly eat a thing, yet I still gain weight. awk! Pleeez-
Let’s start educating people about healthy eating & caring for our bodies.
The people in our country are embarrassing. If we had to pull together to defend ourselves in our own land or address some sort of major crisis, we’d be screwed – there are so many of us who can’t get from the car to the front door without getting winded.
Harsh words? Yeah. So put out your cigarette, wipe the donut crumbs off your chin and go take a walk! Oh wait – just one walk won’t do it…it’ll have to be daily. Some folks might need clarification on that. “I dieted for a whole day and just can’t seem to lose weight”.
Dee, why don’t you share with us your weight loss story and how you accomplished it.
Dee – I agree 100%. People have the ability to put down the Twinkie if they so choose. If you are fat, you didn’t get that way by eating celery and carrots. You ate your way to the fat pants by stuffing your face with cookies, microwave popcorn, fast food and soda. Get off your butt and exercise. I believe if people want to be fat lazy sloths, they have a right. By the same token, we should have a right to not pay for the fat @sses medical bills.
What about risky sexual behavior? Condom use? What about those that sky-dive on the weekends? Fast food junkies who may not be fat? Alcoholics or drug users? Those with a genetic predisposition to certain illnesses? Should we just use DNA checks on everyone to determine eligibility for health services? Did you get all your vacinations when you were a kid? Been to any 3rd world countries lately? I’m not saying being overweight is okay, but there are a lot of other health “crimes” that could be pointed out. I agree with the person above — this is the beginning of a very slippery slope.
It’s a slippery slope there people. First smokers, then obese people…what next? Diabetics? Persons with heart disease or other chronic disorders? and so on down the line until the employees in their 20’s complain that those in their 50’s and 60’s should pay more because older people come down with more illnesses.
I agree with Retro Man. It is a slippery slope- What about alcohol usage/abuse. If you drink , should you pay more for health coverage, afterall, you are more likely to develop liver problems, get into an auto accident (& exceed your auto medical limit). I am a smoker and I know it’s a choice & will pay more for my health care, but it is a alsippery sople, who will they target next?
I submit that the majority with diabetes and other chronic diseases are obese -which is a huge contributing factor, excuse the pun, if not the major cause, to many diseases.
Not all who are diseased are obese, I know this from family experience.
Not everyone with heart disease smokes or over eats.
Let’s not ‘enable’ or pussyfoot around the issue of obesity because we all have friends and loved ones who are. It is a very, very serious problem.
And to the inquiry about my weightloss plan: Well, when I gain a few pounds I quit shoveling so much food in my face and get some additional exercise. Because really, whining about the fact that I can’t eat as much pizza or drink as much beer as I used to doesn’t accomplish a darned thing.
Whining is not a weight loss plan…
You mean you have never been obese? And you are giving advise to obese people on how to lose weight? Forgive me if I LOL all over you.
Like I said – it ain’t rocket science.
And if LOL long enough and hard enough, maybe you’ll lose a few ounces…
I’m not saying it is preferable or good in any way to be overweight (or to over anything, btw), but there is always a reason behind people’s compulsive behavior. I wonder if you would have this same mentality toward an anorexic? An anorexic is statistically more likely to have health problems than an obese person. Is this okay since they aren’t a “fat, lazy slob?” Or is this really just about your bias against fat people? That may not be true of you, but it sure does sound like it. And also, I’m wondering how’s your cholesterol? Blood pressure? Any family history of heart attack, stroke, cancer? I’m just saying…
Well said Todd!
If this is a duplicate-forgive me. I agree with Retro Man- It is a slippery slope. What about those who consume alcolhol? They are more at risk for liver problems and other alcohol related illnesses. That too, is a lifestyle choice. They cost insurance companies alot more money as well- get into an auto accident & exceed your auto medical limits, then your poor health care provider had to kick in for some fool who got behind the wheel and hurt himself & others.
Most child psychologists will tell you the same thing. To make behaviorial changes, don’t punish bad behavior. Reward good behavior. So rather than punish people who cost the healthcare system more, reward those who cost it less. Let there be an incentive to living a healthy lifestyle. The other side of the coin is this. If people are getting healthier, then I damn well better see my insurance costs go down! Fat chance of that happening, though.
Until we control the healthcare fiasco in this country this will continue. Take the money out of the equation by offering free health care for all and guess what? This would not happen! A true liabilty claim will be required to go to court based on true facts not bought opinions. Imagine, medicine that is based on healing in lieu of who has the most money?
And..Since when did my employer and that giant Wal Mart become my “big brother”? Next they will tell me my light skin is prone to certain skin cancers and I need to stay out of the sun so I can’t go on vacation in certain areas known for excessive sun rays….
Let me ask a few questions.
1. If money is not involved in health care, how do doctors get paid? Nurses? Orderlies? Manufaturers of medical goods and equipment? Should they just all work for free? Take out the profit margin for the medical professionals, and you’ll be extreemly short staffed on medical professinals because why would someone go to school for 8+ years not to have finacial stability later in life?
2. I agree with you that med mal cases should be based on ture facts, not opinions, but until you take a case to court, how can you determine what is fact and opinion?
3. Acutally, healing in this country is based upon the hypocratic oath. Emergency care hospitals will take people in, regardless on their ability to pay.
It is refreshing to see people like Todd and Retro man bring up the other behaviours that affect health, but are PC so OK.
Putting aside STDs or sky diving, or motorcycle riding as cost drivers, what about the potential costs of being healthy?
Will workers’ compensation be available to employees who cannot work due to an injury sustained in the Gym? (bad knees being the new carpal tunnel)
Can an employer be sued if an employee has a heart attack in the gym? (they forced me to jazzersize and I felt pain on my side)
What about sexual harassment charges when an executive starts to date a personal trainer? (be nice to that guy, his company keeps this gym afloat with the employee’s membership fees)
Lastly, our knowledge of medicine in always changing. When I entered the workforce, Ulcers were thought to be the result of bad diet, coffee, stress and smoking. Now we know ulcers are caused by viruses. What if running past age forty is a direct path to needing expensive treatments vs. stationary bikes? Or what if a stationary bike is a direct line to some urinary problem?
Slippery slopes indeed…
Effective immediately there will be a non-stop, smoke-a-thon in front of all health care buildings. Smokers are encouraged to chain smoke without interruption for weeks on end. Fast food delivery will be available to sustain you. This is an added cost and we encourage you to please put your cigarett butts and trash in the proper receptacles.
So many potential risk penalties – Yet so little time for twisted premium rate increase logic –
New Parent Risk Penalty – If your newborn is gassy, couldn’t that cause one to lose sleep and be a multi-risk to their self, and others.
Almost New Parent Risk Penalty – Pregnant women who can’t see their feet are a risk. They could misstep off a curb and cause a multi-car accident.
Personal Appearance Risk Penalty – Make-up and perfume enhancing a woman’s appearance could cause a neck injury to an observant man passing by.
Hunger Risk Penalty – Eating food creates a risk of choking, and brain injury, or death.
Rest Risk Penalty – Resting one’s mind and body may create a lazy attitude, somehow, and risk a fat brain happening.
Death Risk Penalty – Dying can create grief from fellow workers, and cut into production and risk profits.
Funeral Risk Penalty – Kinda’ the same penalty as the death risk penalty.
Penalty Risk Penalty – One could be at risk for a heart attack by penalty overload.