Fat! It’s the New Smoking!

I wonder what Chris Dodd is thinking right now…

…oh wait, he's exempt from all this wonderfulness.

Never mind.

Actually, fat people should pay more for their health insurance. Fat people use more health care than fit people. Therefore, they should pay more if they want their health care subsidized by other people. Smokers should also. It's really a pretty simple concept. Just like people with DUIs should pay more for car insurance. And people who live in flood plains should pay more for home insurance.

I'm not saying fat people need to become fit. But fat people can't complain when their choices result in higher costs to themselves.

If you have insurance through your employer, you're insurance is almost certainly subsidized by others. Now, for the most part, that's what insurance is, a spreading of risk. But employers don't charge extra for fat people (some do for smokers). Fat people pay the same contribution as fit people. Today. Without Obamacare.

I'm as against government intervention in health care as anyone. In fact, I think there's too much regulation right now. And I do agree that Obamacare would institute rationing. Everyone, fat people, smokers, or drug users should be able to get the health care they want. They just need to be willing to pay the freight.

Had the same thought myself……….but he's important to the nation so he get's the very best "our money" can buy!

One other thought! A fat tax might be an idea. We could make a killing just in the house and senate! There aren't very many "petite flowers" in that bunch. Moo!

Come on.
This was to be expected.

You think the "K' Street lobbyists are buying lunch, ball game tickets and sending chocolates over to the Rayburn House office building for nothing?

America is coast to coast lard asses.
And the Medical Industrial Complex isn't going to let such easy pickens alone.
There's lots of gold in them there rolls of fat.

My husband & I are middle age.
We ditched our so called "health insurance" over 5 years ago.
So glad we did.

The monthly premiums were well over $830 per month – back then – goodness only knows what the are today.
No way we could afford that – we are people of extremely modest means.
$830 is a house mortgage in my neck of the woods!

We have taken responsibility for our own health and pay out of pocket if we need our doctor.

Funny thing.
Now that I don't have any "health insurance" or "health care", my doctor charges me $55 and can make a diagnoses with me sitting on the edge of the table.

I don't need anymore expensive test or medicines and I've saved over $51,460 in just over 5 years.
When I want to see a specialist I see who I want.
I'm paying for so they don't care.

These days I'm happy to break an arm or have a heart attack , because I'll still come out ahead.
In so far as by cardiac pass surgery or traditional cancer treatment – no thanks.

The only folks that have benefited and will continue to befit in the future from any sort of "health care reform" is Big Pharma, HMO's and other special interest.
Both sides of the aisle in Congress are bought and paid for.

That's just the way "K" Street plans to keep it.

[...] a Good Liberal Debbie Schlussel: Dumb Food Police Lawsuit of the Day Jeffrey Jena, Big Hollywood: Fat! It’s the New Smoking! NEOAVATARA: Medicare: The Preamble to the Public Option and A Conservative Health Care [...]

And will the celebrities of Hollyweird get booted to the back of the line because they've been starving themselves by using cotton balls soaked in orange juice to stay thin and causing damage to their bodies thru anorexia and bulimia?

Hussein Obama is tweeting with Rove and Cheney all day learning the tricks of the trade
/sarc

Reading is FUNdamental. I never said anyone shouldn't get health c are. This is about insurance. People who gets AIDS from messing around should have to pay mroe than me.

I think it may fall under the "I-don't-know-and-I-don't-wanna-know!" category.

I don't get insurance through an employer. I'm self-insured.

Since when did it become cool to give people the business for being obese. Many can't help it. I mean what are they gonna do, say your obese, and you are having a real problem losing weight but we can't give you lat band surgery or gastro by pass because its too expensive. Go sit over there and eat the purple pill…..what a bunch of hooey.

I sort of agree with you, insurance is shared risk, that is the whole concept. Even though I'm fat, my husband and I(only) pay the same amount for our health insurance as do employees with 3 or more kids and they use health care a lot more than I do. My costs are lowered and so are theirs, hence the shared risk.

Shouldn't we be thinking about taxing fat people for being overweight? We tax smokers and drinkers, and we tax and regulate people for doing all kinds of things that the government doesn't like, or that cost society a lot of money, so why not fat people? We require people to have cars checked for emissions every couple of years, and make them fix them if they are too dirty. Why not examine people every couple of years, and fine them if they have a body fat percentage higher than acceptable? Or, we could have fat detectors in all restaurants, and if you are overweight, you would pay higher taxes than someone who is thing? Oh, I guess that wouldn't work, would it? I guess there are too many fat people, and the suggestion might result in the loss of jobs for those who proposed it, wouldn't it? Hmmmm, maybe fat people should think about that, next time someone in government talks about taxing some other group, behavior or activity.

Oh, but the Eloi of Capital Hill are exempt from the laws and regulations that affect us mere Morlocks.

I hear there are congressmen now who are hiding from their constituents.

And as for a fat tax: Get Gerald Nadler of NY. Alone, he'd pay for the Porkulus. . . . . (evil grin)

Well, you make a fairly compelling argument. However, insurance is about statistics, not behavior. Your wanting to punish one group for their bad behavior is a moral judgment.

So much of this 'health care' is about disapproving of FUN. Smoking feels nice, it is FUN, and along with drinks in an old timey bar, it's GREAT FUN. If I took all the advice flung at me by the Medical Profession, I would never smoke, never drink, I would jog regularly and get really thin by following slavishly the Canada Food Rules (or their most recent iteration, it has changed several times.) At my health spa, the list of 'must-do's' went along with statistics citing the death rate of those who broke those rules. Actually, the actual death rate is 100 percent.

With socialized medicine, the fun nazis will run amuck, throwing overboard the fat, the slow, the smokers, the people with a sense of humour and anyone else they disapprove ot. Liberals LOVE socialization because they get to judge other people

Milady. . .

RE: giving them the business/harrassing people

They already do **that** before they have their morning bowl of politically-correct organic cereal flakes with sustainable soy-milk and brown turbinado sugar. (That, incidentally, could pay for an entire day's food for a poor family, but the Elect don't need to sacrifice THEIR lifestyles, for they are the Chosen Ones, the Favored of the Anointed One. Ask them, they'll tell you. After explaining to you how much better they are than you, of course!!!)

Then they'll lecture you on the unsustainability of YOUR preferred meal, and how morally superior THEIR choices are. And you'll lose weight, due to not eating, because after their several-hour lecture is over, you'll have lost your appetite!!!

Actually, I think you hit on something. Michael Moore is always bashing capitalism but has made tens of millions from it. Its not that he's a hypocrit. He knew that gov't run health care was coming and he needed a big stash of cash to pay the underground doctors. It all makes sense now…

When I was a kid in California, I thought all the bans on smoking were a good thing because "smoking was bad."

Similarly, I thought the helmet laws for motorcycles riders were a good thing because it kept the riders safer.

Now that I have learned what this line of thinking leads to (taxing the fat, banning soda machines, etc), I wish I could go back and educate that young man that I was. I want to warn him that trying to regulate what people do to their own bodies is a slippery slope that you don't want to go down.

I don't think it's a moral judgment. It's a statistical one. People who smoke and people who are obese incur more health care costs. I'm not saying people shouldn't do those things if they choose to. But they need to pay more for their insurance than people who don't.

I get what you're saying. What you're not seeing is, you're dividing statistics into two categories, genetic and behavioral, and only charging for the bad behavior. That becomes a moral judgment. People with a genetic predisposition to cancer or stroke incur more health care costs also. A pure statistical model would require these people to pay more for their insurance.

And what if your child has spina bifida? You pay more right? Tore your rotator cuff and blew out a knee playing softball? You pay more right? If your are diagnosed with small cell carconia? You just get shuffled off to the trash heap? Hang in there cupcake………it's gonna get rough

Why not check the brain function of some people (namely you) and just euthanize them when they postulate such a stupid idea?

No.
We're land rich and cash poor.
We have lived modestly our whole lives and have assets that can be easily liquidated.
We'll get by just fine.

We took a life lessons from our Amish neighbors years ago.
Live simple – incur no debt.

Ah, you just flunked the humor and IQ tests with 22 words. As someone to look-up [sarcasm] for you.

Here's where your line of reasoning is beyond stupid:
"I live in a city of over 8 million people and have only seen a hand full of obese Latin people."
Okay, you live in a city that has a population the size of New Jersey. There's 300 million Americans. Common sense says there's bound to more fat Americans due to the sheer population.

"American women are high-maintenance prima donna pigs with attitudes. I'd take a foreign born Russian or Latina woman any day."
Huh? I could substitute American with French or Russian and the statement would still only be partly true.

Now if you excuse me, my Russian mail-order bride just arrived at my door….

Yes, this has been coming down the pike for a long time. It is a convenient way to scapegoat low-income people, just like smoking was. I am surprised at this article since the "Fat is not Beautiful" article up the other day was not exactly fat friendly. Actually, you don't need to be friendly to fat people, since they suffer enough already from prejudice, but it seems common sense to me that they are next in line to be culled from the herd after smokers. Regulating private life is essentially what this comes down to… of course you can't regulate the privacy of choosing an abortion, of course you can't regulate the privacy of what any individuals do sexually, but yes, you can regulate what people put in their mouth? The thing people do to stay alive, that is, eat? Even this article up on the site a few days ago claimed that FOX wants a "fat is beautiful" show, but the hook of the show is the OPPOSITE, exactly- the hook is, hey, these people are kind of bad looking, wanna watch? I digress, but the issue is how much do you really want the government to regulate private, personal acts that no one should have to justify? In addition, before making the claims about health and etc, the medical world really needs to understand the root causes of obesity… and no one does. In a world where very few people starve, a few people become obese. Like other liberal casus belli, the fat issue essentially gets at problems of wealth. Gee, doesn't it suck that we are so wealthy we use up more resources than other 3rd world nations, where the women are better looking because they are too poor to eat more than once a day? We are not only ugly… but damn… that wealth that has people living longer, sending people to the moon, producing Nobel Laureates… also creates FAT people because of the excess. Sorry folks, but good comes with bad, and in my book, wealth is good. It's only those 3rd world nations that destroy the undesirables. But here, in the US, we have to tolerate a little ugly to go with the wealth. If you want to stare at better looking women, go to where they are starving

Damn Jeffery that was one of your more cynical pieces, …I understand : (

Definitely, “I’m smoking for the children.” LOL!

PS The idea that fat people only eat McDonald's and that several times a day, is incorrect. Studies have shown that skinny kids eat way more sugar than fat kids, and fat kids have better teeth. We have all known people who can scarf down junk food on a daily basis and remain completely skinny, and those who eat fairly well, sensible meals, little sugar, that their body simply cannot process. Obesity is complex, and lumping an entire group of people into punitive regulation will be a big, big mistake.
I have known several "overweight" people in excellent health, who need the attention of a doctor perhaps once in ten years. I don't think diabetes either is exclusively something that hits obese people. Until the causes of obesity can be scientifically nailed down, which they now are not, regulating certain foods will more likely disappoint the candy hungry little six year old next door, or the rail thin soda addict, then it will the obese person.
Bottom line: Do you want the govt. to regulate private acts? If so, then please repeal your abortion and free sex laws, and if not, get ready to have everything you do in addition to your food intake monitored.

The other problem, as someone noted up there, is that those skinny people with "invisible" health problems- drug addiction, (which some people do manage to conceal) , STDs from the free love culture which it is bad to disapprove of yet cost society millions (we invest more in AIDS research than cancer research even though you have to ACT to get AIDS, while cancer can strike no matter what you do to prevent it) anorexia and bulemia , who are certainly food addicts in their obsession, if not consumption of food. There is an interesting obsession of society with the "visible" sins, and since sexual sins, which used to be more visible and more disapproved of, are simply removed as a target, the rage and judgment for lesser sins, like gluttony, is doubled and tripled. Very disturbing. Maybe if liberals led a more regular, sane sexual life, they would even out a little on the rage for the little sins. I just find it very ironic that the same people who protested against judging people who broke every social law to have free and wild sex and died from it, are up in arms to prosectue people who eat too many McDonald's hamburgers, don't exercise enough, or who just aren't pretty according to their standards (but, hey, those unpretty girls probably don't have AIDS and STDS, or unwatned pregnancies, thereby saving the public millions.) The statistics about obesity in this country have been changed more than once in the WRONG direction, that is, an inflated direction. The CDC had to correct its numbers a few years ago, I remember, which were something like 10 times too large. It is not wise to trust statistics that are led by a witch-hunt mentality, and honestly, a fair amount of sexism towards women, since it is always women who bear the societal costs ( lower wages, lost work, public harassment, constant scapegoating through life) of the anti-obesity rhetoric. Rather than castigate, investigate and understand. There is no science here, only pseudo science.

If government can get people to quit smoking, health-care costs will go down.

If government can get people to quit eating, health-care costs will go WAY down. Casket costs will go way up, but that will just add more jobs.

As an aside, I am sick to death of the "stupid white male" in television ads. It has gotten to the point that I hold it against companies now who use that motiff.

And frankly, if I was black, I'd wonder why television advertisers seem to think that blacks are so thin-skinned that they can't be seen in any humorous roles.

I was never heavy in my life until menopause. I guess I need to just put myself on an iceburg and float out to sea…oh…I forgot, the icebergs are all melted….what to do? what to do?

As a fat guy I remain stoic at the coming of Obamacare. I fullly expect to be marginalized, ridiculed and generally given a nudge toward exercising my "duty to die" for the sake of the greater good. Given the powerful state of the POTUS abs and the deification of everyone with a People magazine body-type I fully expect the cyanide pills in the mail any day now. Oh well, I suppose it's my fault and I have it coming.

This sounds like a good subject for Michael Moore's next Film….Fat Attack. He'll have a vested interest in it, in a Big… Big… Way. Maybe he can get Rosie O'Donnell as the Lead…Pay Back Can Be …A Beautiful Thing.

Andrew, you need to think of those commercials implying "stupidity" in white men as a "Teaching Moment"……..

That's a slippery slope, friend. There are a lot of factors that put people at higher statistical risk. How about high cholesterol? I knew a guy back in my Air Force days who could have been a "Men's Fitness" magazine cover. He ran five miles a day, watched what he ate, drank only in moderation. Couldn't get his cholesterol below 275. It was a genetic thing.

Should he pay higher premiums?

"These days I'm happy to break an arm or have a heart attack"…

OK then. Whatever makes you happy. Enjoy.

What are you planning to do, though, when either you or your husband come down with a catastrophic, debilitating illness that cleans out your bank account and leaves you unable to work? You've already classified yourselves as "people of extremely modest means".

Surely you aren't intending to go on the government dole?

Screw this I'm going to fight fire with fire. Socialists try to usher in their failed ideology by burdening the welfare systems. So I'm going to do the same thing. From now on and for the rest of my life, I am going to smoke 4 packs a day and eat nothing but double pepperoni pizza and wash it down with gallons of milk and coke. My main goals are to break the 900lb. mark, get diabetes, have 17 heart attacks, and with a little luck I will develop a slow progressing cancer and cost the universal healthscam system millions. If they try to deny me medical care I will scream that they are prejudiced against my uber-sexy fatness and that I am being unfairly judged. That's something the idiot libs should understand…the victim mentality and how nothing is my fault. Bunch of idiots.

How about people who:

drive too fast or too much, or who don't wear seatbelts
have promiscuous sex – protected or not, gay or not
drink alcohol or do illicit drugs
eat too much fat, regardless of their weight
don't exercise
choose desk jobs instead of active lumberjack jobs
live in bad neighborhoods

The list of bad-for-you behaviors is endless.

As for me, I would prefer a system where I pay my own way, but carry catastrophic health insurance for those things that Just Happen. Right now, the real reason for high insurance costs is not whether or not someone had a Twinkie too many, but too many people using their "free" insurance benefits for minor issues – high demand equals high costs. Make the money come out of their own pockets, and not only do you cut costs but you'll see a pretty serious change toward healthy behaviors. For those who don't, they pay for most of the repercussions themselves.

We can't poke fun at any other group except the conservatives, Christians, southerners, and white males, but it's still ok to laugh at that fat kid and blame him or her for everything.

This strikes at the heart of the funding debate for a obama type health care system.

If you tie payment to condition, actually AGE is the best predictor or health care costs.

Then, you would charge women of child bearing age much more money. You would charge black male americans much more than white males, etc.

It is a very slippery slope.

Very true, but now that it's out in the open, it's much more difficult for them to introduce it. Liberals hate when their beaten to the punch.

Hey guys,
Leave Granny alone! You can "what if…" all day long. Well, what if Granny Miller and her hubby both live to be 95 and never have a serious illness? It's very possible. My grandmother lived to be 89 and rarely ever even went to the doctor. Life is a gamble. Let the Millers be in charge of their own chips.

In a lot of cases, it is not the food consumed, but the lack of energy expended. You can scarf down that 12 oz rib eye, baked potato with all the trimmings, and the 5 rolls with honey butter and stil maintain the ideal weight if you burn off those excess calories. The problem today is most people would rather plop down on the couch after stuffing themselves and kids would rather stay inside and play video games. Of course, the main roadblock to losing weight is the call of the modern day Siren, the computer. People will sit for hours and hours on their lard butts in front of their monitors, checking email, reading up on the latest news…

Hey, wait a minute…

You mean the GAY population will suffer? Are you kidding? Don't you think the people making these rules will somehow find a way around the Gay Deal? Ohh Noo Fat people, yours isn't hereditary, yours is plain and simple lifestyle choice, that's right fat people, You can help it but these poor homosexuals over her.. ahh no, these people were born that way. That's something that's far beyond their control. NaHa, they have to ingest semen and take it up the arse.

Too late. 2007 research, fat is "socially contagious," being around fat people increases the likelihood of becoming fat. And yes, there is a fat virus, 30% of obese people have it. While not the same as "second hand fat," this can be cited as evidence that fat people are dangerous to be around, thus immediate action must be taken.

Note there is no adjustment given in the "social" article to account for the spread of the virus. Note also there is no mention of a vaccine being developed for the virus, when many millions to possibly billions of dollars have been poured into combating viruses that kill far less than that attributed to obesity. After all, being fat is solely due to lifestyle choices and can be easily corrected with diet and exercise, while HIV/AIDS ensnares only innocent victims, for example.

Any lowly guitarist can tell you that this is wrong on every level, because we all know that, "Big bottom girls, they make the rockin' world go 'round."

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