Man 'too fat' to live in New Zealand

[Coito ergo sum]

Of course you'll have better health outcomes, you kick out all the sick ones.

[Seth]

The leading causes of death in the US before age 50 include car accidents, gun violence and drug overdoses.

What? Gun violence and drug overdoses? Where did you get that?

Guns and drugs don't even make the top 10. Guns don't even make the top 99 according to the CDC.

Accidental firearms deaths come in at #100

Suicide by gun comes in at #105

Homicides by gun comes in at #107

Are you looking at a table for those under age 50? Homicides and suicides are pretty high for the young adult age ranges, and I suspect most of those use firearms in the U.S.

Although, I would say the high rate of obesity due to unhealthy governmental dietary recommendations is much more of a limitation on U.S. life expectancy than those factors.

You can cherry pick categories if you like, but those are the overall figures. Teen suicide is high on the list only if you only look at deaths in teens. Teen deaths by firearms are only high on the list in certain small ethnic and social segments (specifically inner-city blacks) which massively skews the figures for the rest of the country.

[laklak]

Of course you'll have better health outcomes, you kick out all the sick ones.

Do you think the percentage of people being denied temporary work visas on health grounds is significant?

No idea. I'm just taking the mick as usual.

[Seth]

To Seth

The New Scientist article I quoted was 13 July 2013, and written by Dr. Lauden Aron, a senior research associate with the Urban Institute in Washington DC. While I am not expert on this topic, Dr. Aron is.

Only in his area of expertise, which is not politics.

Is first paragraph says : " Americans die younger and experience more injury and illness than people in other rich countries, despite spending almost twice as much per person on healthcare."

So what? The mistaken a priori assumption of this statement is that it is bad for people to die younger and have more injuries and illness.

What you socialists can't fathom is the fact that obesity, heart disease, accidents and all those things the leftist medical community bemoans and uses as an excuse to regulate are all consequences of the exercise of liberty and freedom of choice.

We in America have a constitutional right to be obese, to be sick with heart disease or anything else, to risk our safety, health and lives to whatever extent we choose, and the government is not supposed to have the power to interfere with those individual liberty-based decisions.

If I want to climb mountains, or skydive, or shoot guns, or eat fast-food or sit 23 hours a day in front of the TV eating cheetos and pizza and gain a thousand pounds that is my right as an American. That's MY pursuit of happiness and nobody, and I mean nobody has the right to interfere with that pursuit by using the excuse that it's "bad for you" to live that way.

It's none of your fucking business because, until Obamacare, everybody had to pay for their own medical care, one way or another. Some people (most) chose to take advantage of government-mandated HMO coverage from their employer but they were not required to do so! Those (like me) who choose NOT to engage in the "health insurance" racket are responsible for our own medical bills when and if they come due, just like every other contractual debt someone incurs. And the rules of the market determine (or are supposed to determine) what treatment I can afford. If I cannot afford a particular treatment, then I die, or remain ill. That's just how it is. I have no right whatsoever to demand or even expect everyone else in society to take on the costs of the medical risks of my lifestyle. It's my burden and I either shoulder it or I suffer the consequences on my own.

That's my right. It's also my right not to pay for someone else's bad lifestyle choices to my economic detriment.

If they die, well, sucks to be them but we've all got a one-way ticket. I'm not responsible for their life or health, they are.

That's called "Liberty."

As we can see from every example of socialized medicine, when the individual places his or her health maintenance in the hands of the government, they give the government the authority to control and restrict their liberty and behavior in order to reduce the exposure of the public to the costs of their health care.

This is absolutely proven by this very case. And that's just the beginning. As socialized medicine continues to drag the nation down into economic collapse the control of behaviors and risk will become ever-more intrusive and draconian as the government desperately tries to reduce the amount of tax money they have to spend on any one individual. Already figures show that more than 80 percent of health-care costs are spent on less than 15 percent of patients. In other words, the very sickest and most enfeebled (and least likely to survive or be productive) get the lion's share of the money spent on socialized medicine.

In a free country, people pay for their own medical care and the market forced health care costs DOWN rather that UP, as government control of medicine does, and if they can't afford treatment, they suffer the natural consequences of life and they die. And there's nothing at all wrong with that. It comes to us all, some sooner rather than later.

Further on its describes the USA as having higher infant mortality, teen pregnancy, traffic fatalities, and heart disease. It even says : " Even those with health insurance, college educations, and healthy lifestylesappear to be sicker than their counterparts in other wealthy countries."

Liberty in action.

Premature births are higher than the comparison countries and are closer to sub-Saharan Africa.

Individual choice as an exercise in liberty. There are plenty of voluntary programs to help expectant mothers keep their children healthy that don't require government funds. It's actually pretty simple. Those who refuse to take advantage of the charity of others get what they've got coming to them because it's their sovereign and free right to do so.

It goes on to say that the USA lags behind other wealthy countries in many measures of education, higher child poverty, more income inequality, and lower social mobility.

Manifestations of liberty of choice of the parents.

Dr. Aron says that one of the major impediments to improving things is the resistance in the USA of anything smacking of socialism. He compares the USA unfavourably with Sweden, a very 'socialist' nation with much better employment, housing, education, health, and social insurance.

He's right. Socialism is to be avoided at all costs, including higher infant mortality and people dying younger. That's because the dangers and terrors of Socialism are too gruesome to contemplate and we must NOT allow it to take over our nation because doing so destroys utterly the very foundations of liberty and freedom we built this nation on.

Better dead than Red.

Despite all this, the USA spends twice as much per capita on health compared to other wealthy nations, and the results are poor.

Manifestations of liberty.

I should add that Dr. Aron was discussing the results of a major report by the US National Research Council and the Institute of Medicine, so it is not his personal view.

Sure it is, he said it.

What neither he nor you are capable of understanding is that free Americans would rather die young than be enslaved to the Socialist state.

If I want to eat myself to death, or jump off a cliff without a parachute, it's my absolute right to do so, and fuck anyone who tries to tell me it's not.

[mistermack]

What a load of absolute bollocks is being spouted on this thread.

I've seen and heard Americans who were treated in the UK praising the treatment and care that they got, and saying that they no longer believed the crap that is spouted in the US by morons who have to criticise anything social.
The truth is that the services on both sides of the Atlantic are roughly comparable in quality.
Some are better at some things, some better at others.

But the huge difference is that the cost per person is DOUBLE in the US, for a very similar standard of care.
AND, the other huge difference is that the US has fifty million people who are not covered.

And that's not the end of it. Many more have cover, but it runs out, if you get too sick to work.
I know, I have a cousin, who is in exactly that situation. He had good cover, became too sick to work,
and now, his care has to be covered in cash by the rest of the family.

The system is absolutely shit, expensive, and kept going only because of dogmatic blindness.
There are none so blind, as those who will not see. None so dumb, either.

[Seth]

What a load of absolute bollocks is being spouted on this thread.

I've seen and heard Americans who were treated in the UK praising the treatment and care that they got, and saying that they no longer believed the crap that is spouted in the US by morons who have to criticise anything social.

AAAAGGGGHHHHH ! ANECDOTE Everybody run it's an ANECDOTE.

I didn't report on the oldsters dying of thirst and drinking flower water. I didn't report the people put on months-long waiting lists for MRIs and CAT scans. I'm not the one who reported increasingly poor care driven by bureaucrats making medical decisions. Your British press reported all that.

And I imagine that the hospitals treat tourists better than they do their own people if for no other reason than to keep up the image of the NHS in the press. Nothing quite so nettling as having hordes of tourists telling other tourists not to go to the UK because their aunt died of thirst in a NHS hospital.

The truth is that the services on both sides of the Atlantic are roughly comparable in quality.
Some are better at some things, some better at others.

Not really. In theory perhaps, but what with budgets and cuts and bureaucrats the fact is that people in the UK wait for months for treatment by specialists and not infrequently die waiting.

But the huge difference is that the cost per person is DOUBLE in the US, for a very similar standard of care.

And THAT is an artifact of government regulation, specifically the rule that requires employers of more than 50 people to provide full HMO coverage to all employees, no matter how sick they are. This amounts to "prepaid healthcare" not "insurance" so employees feel free to go to the HMO doctor every time they get a splinter or a sniffle, thus consuming huge amounts of unnecessary medical resources. The market responds to the shortages of everything from band-aids to brain surgeons by doing what markets do; the price goes up.

In the good old days you had to decide whether it was economically feasible to go to the ER to get a sore throat treated or whether to schedule an appointment or just read a book, find out what to do and treat it at home. That's because in the good old days you got the health care that you could afford, and you knew it, so you set aside money for medical care.

Now, even in the US, with the OPM flowing freely, consumers are happy to overburden the system because they want to "get what they paid for" in premiums every month. And they are right to do so because they ARE being ripped off by the health care industry right, left and center.

But this leads to higher medical costs for everyone because of an overloaded system. At least in our system you can get whatever level of care you need and can afford whenever you want it, wherever you need it. This is unlike ANY socialized medicine system on the planet where you get put in line behind those in front of you and there's no way out of the system once you're in.

That's why France's president flew to the US for his medical care.

You may prefer egalitarianism in medical care, but, well, fuck you because when I want medical care I want the best there is and I want it RIGHT NOW and fuck all the rest of y'all.

And that's exactly what I get here in the US. No waiting lines, no rationing, just the best medical care on the planet. It's not my problem that other people don't save up for medical emergencies, and if they die of that negligence, that's the consequences of stupidity and short-sightedness. I sure as fuck am not going to be forced to pay for it.

AND, the other huge difference is that the US has fifty million people who are not covered.

We should have 300 million who "aren't covered."

And that's not the end of it. Many more have cover, but it runs out, if you get too sick to work.
I know, I have a cousin, who is in exactly that situation. He had good cover, became too sick to work,
and now, his care has to be covered in cash by the rest of the family.

Or not. They could let him die.

The system is absolutely shit, expensive, and kept going only because of dogmatic blindness.
There are none so blind, as those who will not see. None so dumb, either.

[/quote]

Not really. Its just another example of the fundamental difference between dependent-class socialists who think that they are entitled to rob others for their own benefit and Libertarians who believe that a person's life is his own to live and that he can't shuffle the burden or the consequences of his life off onto others without their consent.

Sometimes...often in fact, the best thing you can do for your family is walk out onto the ice and wait for the bear. Anything else is selfish socialism.

[Blind groper]

Seth

You do talk a load of cobblers.
In the UK, and here in NZ, and other similar nations, you can get medical insurance if you wish, and go to the front of the queue when sick using private hospitals. Certainly. I have medical insurance myself.

The big difference though, is that those who cannot afford medical insurance in all those non American nations can get life saving medical care without paying a fortune. And no. They do not die in waiting. Long waiting lists are normally for those needing elective treatments like hip replacement surgery. They wait, often with pain, but do not die. Those with urgency, under life threatening conditions, get treated quickly.

You also have a weird view of liberty. Nations with good medical care do not force a person with bad eating habits to diet. They have the right to eat themselves into an early grave if they wish to. Good state provided medical care, though, gives them life saving treatment when it is possible. Nor is an extra high rate of child mortality a sign of liberty. It is a sign of lousy medical care. You can be free, as I am, and still have access to the kind of care that permits high survival.

On the OP, I am a NZer as you know, and this affects my country. I have been in favour, for a long time, of free state provided gastric surgery for the obese. It makes financial sense, since the cost ($10,000 to $15,000) is minimal compared to the extra costs of long term health care for those people, plus the loss of taxes when those people are unable to work. The chef we talked about has been in NZ for 5 years, and has paid taxes over that time. My personal view is that he should be offered free gastric surgery to lose weight as an alternative to deportation.

This is not a threat to liberty, since the people involved have a choice.

[mistermack]

Seth talks total shit, and revels in it.

Starts the post mocking anecdotes, and then give his own twisted anecdotes. And doesn't even see the stupidity of such double standards.

What horrific anecdotes could you find, if you were bothered, by visiting some of the FIFTY MILLION people in the US who have no medical cover? Most of those people would BEG to be treated by the worst hospital in Britain. ( the one he filched his anecdote from ),
Which, by the way, local people are now praising to the skies, and campaigning to keep open.

Fifty million people without cover. That's about the population of England. Disgusting in a so-called civilised country.

[Warren Dew]

What horrific anecdotes could you find, if you were bothered, by visiting some of the FIFTY MILLION people in the US who have no medical cover?

Since Seth actually is one of those people, I suspect he knows a lot more about their motivations and attitudes than you do.

[Seth]

Seth

You do talk a load of cobblers.
In the UK, and here in NZ, and other similar nations, you can get medical insurance if you wish, and go to the front of the queue when sick using private hospitals. Certainly. I have medical insurance myself.

Good for you. You are aware that Canada tried to force everyone into it's system by making it illegal to jump or go outside the queue right? Didn't work.

The big difference though, is that those who cannot afford medical insurance in all those non American nations can get life saving medical care without paying a fortune.

So can anyone in the United States. All you have to do is walk into any emergency room in the US and you will be treated, free of charge, if you cannot afford to pay. If you CAN afford to pay, you are expected to do so, as is right and proper.

And no. They do not die in waiting.

Evasive. Yes, you can get emergency "life saving" care in socialized medicine, but yes, people do quite often die waiting for non-emergency advanced procedures and treatment for expensive medical conditions like cancer. So much for socialist utopian medical care.

Long waiting lists are normally for those needing elective treatments like hip replacement surgery. They wait, often with pain, but do not die. Those with urgency, under life threatening conditions, get treated quickly.

Sometimes. Sometimes they get palliative care only. Same thing happens here, except the level and competence of the care given is orders of magnitude better.

You also have a weird view of liberty.

How would you know? You evidently don't even understand the concept.

Nations with good medical care do not force a person with bad eating habits to diet.

They don't? Bullshit. It's happening right here in the US right now. It's not "force" it's "nudge" by regulating what you are allowed to buy. For example, it is illegal to have salt on the table in New York City, or to serve trans-fats, and Bloomberg's ban on sugary drinks in cups larger than 16 ounces in size was only recently struck down, and he's not giving up trying to determine what foods New Yorkers can and cannot eat.

Michelle Obama's unconstitutional takeover of the state public school systems food service by executive fiat is exactly and precisely banning parents and school administrators and elected school board representatives from deciding what is served to children in state schools.

They have the right to eat themselves into an early grave if they wish to.

Of course they will be homeless, jobless and indigent because they are "too fat" to get public support.

Good state provided medical care, though, gives them life saving treatment when it is possible.

Sometimes. Often in limited and rationed quantity, at the convenience of the bureaucrats who are in charge of the system.

Nor is an extra high rate of child mortality a sign of liberty. It is a sign of lousy medical care.

No its not. It's a sign of maternal incompetence and ignorance.

You can be free, as I am, and still have access to the kind of care that permits high survival.

Every mother in the US has access to the finest pre-natal and post-natal care on earth in the US, much of it offered absolutely FREE to needy mothers. The vast majority of infant mortality is found in urban, inner-city, minority neighborhoods where the mothers do not care and do not bother to seek out the care they need. It's there for them at their command, but they have to go and get it. Many women do not choose to do so, for personal reasons that are manifestations of liberty, or manifestations of ignorance and a lack of concern for the fetus.

On the OP, I am a NZer as you know, and this affects my country. I have been in favour, for a long time, of free state provided gastric surgery for the obese.

Why should any Kiwi have to pay to keep some fatty from dying of obesity?

It makes financial sense, since the cost ($10,000 to $15,000) is minimal compared to the extra costs of long term health care for those people, plus the loss of taxes when those people are unable to work.

It makes the most financial sense to tell people that if they wish to be obese they are free to be obese, but they will not be treated for obesity-related illnesses on the taxpayer's dime. That's a good incentive for them not to be obese, or at least it unburdens the taxpayers from being forced to subsidize their obesity.

The chef we talked about has been in NZ for 5 years, and has paid taxes over that time. My personal view is that he should be offered free gastric surgery to lose weight as an alternative to deportation.

My view is that he should mind his own business and you (and the government) should mind theirs, which doesn't include fucking around with people's life and health care decisions. That's not a legitimate role of government.

This is not a threat to liberty, since the people involved have a choice.

It's a threat to liberty in many, many ways, some of them overt (like having to turn over your medical records to the fucking IRS for God's sake!), and some of them subtle, like the "nudges" in the marketplace that remove consumer choice by regulating what can and cannot be sold, and by enslaving the individual to the medical needs of people he doesn't know and has no financial responsibility for without giving that taxpayer control over the life and activities of the person being subsidized.

If I were forced to pay taxes and was "assigned" a particular individual to whom my money would go after being forcibly taken from me, I'd damned sure want to oversee and have ultimate authority over that individual's lifestyle and personal choices in order to minimize my exposure to financial liability for bad behavior or poor health decisions.

The government is no different, as I have explained before. It seeks more and more control over the individual and his health choices the more it becomes responsible for their medical expenses. That's totalitarian slavery.

I say you pay for your own medical care and I'll pay for mine and if some needy person needs medical care they can politely ASK ME if I would be willing to help them out, not force me to pay at the muzzle of a machine gun.

And if you can't afford medical care and nobody will help you, then your ticket to ride gets punched early. That's your problem, not mine.

[Seth]

What horrific anecdotes could you find, if you were bothered, by visiting some of the FIFTY MILLION people in the US who have no medical cover?

Since Seth actually is one of those people, I suspect he knows a lot more about their motivations and attitudes than you do.

Yup. By carefully-considered choice. It's the only ethical and moral stance one can take if one eschews theft and enslavement of others.

I'll live till I die, but I won't be a thief or a slave.

Pity Socialists don't have any sense of ethics or morals and prefer to enslave others to their service and then steal from them.

Fuckwits.

[Seth]

Seth talks total shit, and revels in it.

Starts the post mocking anecdotes, and then give his own twisted anecdotes. And doesn't even see the stupidity of such double standards.

What horrific anecdotes could you find, if you were bothered, by visiting some of the FIFTY MILLION people in the US who have no medical cover? Most of those people would BEG to be treated by the worst hospital in Britain. ( the one he filched his anecdote from ),

So, you don't mind if we wrap them up and ship them over to the UK where they can get all this "free" medical care on YOUR dime?

Which, by the way, local people are now praising to the skies, and campaigning to keep open.

Fifty million people without cover. That's about the population of England. Disgusting in a so-called civilised country.

Why? Because they might get dead? We all get dead. Get used to it. You still can't justify why I should be enslaved to the medical needs of the indigent.

Also, your sense of irony needs a tune-up.

[mistermack]

What horrific anecdotes could you find, if you were bothered, by visiting some of the FIFTY MILLION people in the US who have no medical cover?

Since Seth actually is one of those people, I suspect he knows a lot more about their motivations and attitudes than you do.

Except that it hasn't gone wrong yet. I posted earlier that I have a cousin in the US who had good quality health cover through his job. He got sick, and couldn't work, and eventually the cover disappeared. His care and treatment is now being paid for in cash by the family. He's lucky that there were ten kids in that family.
So just because Seth chose not to have insurance, that doesn't mean he know's it all.
Having no insurance always looks wise, UNTIL YOU NEED IT.

Seth has taken a gamble. So far, he's winning. What the fuck does that prove? Health cover is for when you get sick, not for when you are healthy.

His lack of cover shows that he thinks it's not worth having. Too expensive for what you get. Which rather points to the system being shit, as I pointed out.

[Seth]

What horrific anecdotes could you find, if you were bothered, by visiting some of the FIFTY MILLION people in the US who have no medical cover?

Since Seth actually is one of those people, I suspect he knows a lot more about their motivations and attitudes than you do.

Except that it hasn't gone wrong yet. I posted earlier that I have a cousin in the US who had good quality health cover through his job. He got sick, and couldn't work, and eventually the cover disappeared. His care and treatment is now being paid for in cash by the family. He's lucky that there were ten kids in that family.

Gosh, how sad. And how uplifting that he has a family that is VOLUNTARILY choosing to burden themselves in order to care for him and extend his life. That's exactly how it's supposed to work. I have a friend who had tongue cancer and within days of sending out a plea for donations through his Catholic church his surgery and chemo and other medical needs were paid for through the altruism, charity, love and enlightened self-interest of those who know and value him.

So just because Seth chose not to have insurance, that doesn't mean he know's it all.

Never said I did. I just know that Marxism never, ever, ever works.

Seth has taken a gamble. So far, he's winning. What the fuck does that prove? Health cover is for when you get sick, not for when you are healthy.

Yes, I am. Life is a gamble. I learned that at 21 when I was run over by a drunk driver.

His lack of cover shows that he thinks it's not worth having. Too expensive for what you get. Which rather points to the system being shit, as I pointed out.

It is too expensive. I pay for my medical care a la carte. I would pay well over $3500 per year in "insurance" premiums because I have "pre-existing conditions" that threaten to cost a lot of money to treat. I pay less than $1500 per year for my annual checkup and maintenance medications. And if I need other medical care I have prudently put away more than $100,000 in a medical savings account to deal with other things. If that's not enough, well, I'll do without. What I won't do is enslave and steal from others just to selfishly preserve and extend my own life. That's criminal.

Of course you have no ethics so you have no problem enslaving others and stealing from them for your personal needs, so I don't expect you to understand that to some people, dignity and honesty and obedience to ethical behavior are of paramount importance.

You're just a selfish, greedy dependent-class drone who thinks he's entitled to OPM.

You aren't.

[mistermack]

Seth, you're a fucking joke.

You are arguing for a system that is so shit, you don't even want it yourself.

And justifying it to yourself by the stupid " it might never happen to me " argument.

That's about as dumb as it gets.

I wouldn't even buy a cat, if I couldn't afford the health insurance.