“Disabled” Fat People Demand More
Friday, March 20th, 2009I can’t believe that Rachel Lucas hasn’t smacked this English bottom, but since she’s hasn’t and is instead focusing on Obama’s military aspirations, I will (smack the English, fat bottom).
Americans are fat and unhappy these days, but in Britain, that gets you government help:
The family from Blackburn claim £22,508 a year in benefits, equivalent to the take-home pay from a £30,000 salary.
The Chawners, haven’t worked in 11 years, claim their weight is a hereditary condition and the money they receive is insufficient to live on.
Mr Chawner said: “What we get barely covers the bills and puts food on the table. It’s not our fault we can’t work. We deserve more.”
The family claim to spend £50 a week on food and consume 3,000 calories each a day. The recommended maximum intake is 2,000 for women and 2,500 for men.
“We have cereal for breakfast, bacon butties for lunch and microwave pies with mashed potato or chips for dinner,” Mrs Chawner told Closer magazine.
“All that healthy food, like fruit and veg, is too expensive. We’re fat because it’s in our genes. Our whole family is overweight,” she added.
That’s approximately $43,448.78 American, take home, for sitting around with “bad genetics” and eating.
Well, hell. I need to move to England. Curse my Scottish, squat genes. Curse my proclivity to sit on my sorry rear behind a computer all day. Curse my desire for Coca-Cola. I can’t help it! I need to be bailed out.
This entitlement impulse is what keeps Barack Obama as popular as he is right now. We are at a tipping point here in America: the scales are moving in favor of hands out and me-first-and-more-than-my-fair-share. And why not? Where is the incentive to work and be self-sufficient when you can sit at home and eat all day, morally justified to boot.
H/T Tom Elia and reader Lorne
Health Scare: Do You Want Tom Daschle Deciding Your Fate?
Thursday, January 15th, 2009What Tom Daschle wants to do to save his fellow Senators will hurt your health and your pocketbook. From the American Spectator:
But surely Congress, even under the control of the Democrats, would never stand for such a thing. Well, the tone of Daschle’s initial Senate hearing was not encouraging for those depending on the legislature to check the excesses of the executive branch. Even the New York Times found the hearing to be nauseatingly obsequious: “The hearing before a Senate health committee was mostly a love-fest as senators from both parties expressed admiration for their former Senate colleague…” In fact, part of Daschle’s strategy for gaining congressional support for his Federal Health Board is to provide his former colleagues with political cover. As he puts it in his book, “I suspect that most members of Congress would be glad to be rid of their responsibility for controversial health policy decisions.”
And, make no mistake about it, these “controversial decisions” will produce corpses. In fact, NICE has moved beyond mere denial of life-saving medication to gravely ill patients. It has also recommended that the NHS abandon the “rule of rescue,” which requires clinicians to treat dying patients without regard to cost. The Telegraph reports, “The NHS should not always attempt to save someone’s life if the cost is too much, the medical regulator [NICE] has ruled.” But how much is “too much”? What’s a life worth? You and I might think this question hard if not impossible to answer, but NICE is not encumbered by our limitations. It has actually assigned a monetary value to human life.
Right now, as imperfect as the system is, a doctor and patient decide health care decisions. Even those who are uninsured make these choices. They are tough ones. For example, a dying patient might decide to forgo care because he doesn’t want his family burdened after he is gone with excess bills. Or maybe a person doesn’t want to suffer for months. Or maybe a person will take the suffering because he has some goals to accomplish. Or perhaps there’s an experimental treatment that is worth trying. Now, insurance companies might resist paying for certain treatments, and they do. But they have liability issues to deal with if they refuse payment on care that would save a life. They can be sued. The government can’t.
The question Americans have to ask is whether they want Tom Daschle to make these decisions for them or not. More likely, it will be one of his bureaucratic minions making the life and death decisions–like is happening in Britain. The American Spectator lays out how government controlled health care can be a cold, heartless master.
Just imagine the IRS deciding whether you live or die. Yeah, it’s not nice* to imagine.
“There Is No Such Thing As A Genetic Epidemic”
Monday, November 24th, 2008Autism: “There Is No Such Thing As A Genetic Epidemic”
Cancer maybe? Genetic switch with an environmental trigger? I think both can be explained that way.
Insurance For All…Sounds Good Doesn’t It?
Thursday, November 20th, 2008So the New York Times reports that insurance companies are willing to “deal”:
While insurers would be required to sell insurance to any applicant, nothing would guarantee that consumers could afford it. Rate regulation promises to be a highly contentious issue, since it pits the financial interests of insurers against those of consumers.
At present, insurance premiums are generally regulated by the states and often vary according to a person’s age, sex, medical history and place of residence within a state. In the individual market in most states, a person with a history of serious or chronic illness can be charged much more than a healthy person of the same age and sex.
Mr. Hamm, a member of the board of America’s Health Insurance Plans, said the group might offer recommendations to define “a fair and appropriate rating structure.”
Alissa Fox, a vice president of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, said the individual mandate was an indispensable corollary of any approach forbidding insurers to reject applicants because of health status.
“Insurance works best when everyone is in the pool,” Ms. Fox said. “You need healthy people in the insurance pool to help pay for sicker individuals who are much more motivated to buy coverage.”
Insurers did not say how the government should enforce an individual mandate: whether through fines, tax penalties or other means. Politicians have also been reluctant to specify details of enforcement, which could prove highly unpopular.
Here is how “health care for all” in this form will wreck the economy but make health insurance companies very rich:
Right now the economy is already restricting. What does that mean? It means that receivables, income, is down. So, businesses are doing their best to NOT lay-off anyone yet. It’s near Christmas, and trust me, no one wants to tell people they don’t have jobs before the holiday season. So, business owners are doing what they can. They are not buying new equipment. They are not expanding. They couldn’t get a line of credit to take on a new project if they wanted to anyway. They are trying to cut costs other ways. They are considering how to increase prices subtly and finding it impossible to do. They are hoping things turn around in January.
In January, if future contracts don’t look better, there will be some tough choices made. Employees will have to go. Business operations slowed.
In February, Barack Obama and the insurance industry cut a deal. All Americans are required to own health insurance because right now, sick people buy it because they need it and that cuts into profits. Businesses will be required to offer insurance.
If the company was making any money, it won’t after this legislation.
The economy will constrict further. More employees will lose jobs because the companies simply can’t afford to pay them. It was already a struggle making payroll in the tough economy. It will be worse.
With unemployment inching up to 10%, the government will decide “something must be done”. That something will be this: employers will be forced to submit to egregious employment rules. The government will make it more difficult to fire an employee. Employers will stop hiring, because once they hire, they can’t fire. This will further tighten the economy.
Since less people will be working and the government will need more tax revenue, fast food restaurants will be taxed. You name it, there will be a tax here and there and everywhere to help “modify” behavior. Plastic bags in New York. French fried steak in Texas.
No, it won’t be socialism. Not strictly, in the Marxian sense. It will be an Americanified socialism where big businesses collude with the government for power. As long as these two groups make money, the individual will be forced into submission. Their choices restricted. Their money not their own.
That is where this legislation will take us. Oh, and at first, unhealthy people everywhere will be so relieved. But then, see, the government will have to make “tough choices”. The 400 pound man will not be on a list for a heart transplant because of his poor lifestyle choices. The 80 year old woman won’t be given a hip replacement because she’s too old and the new joint would outlast her. Bureaucrats will be deciding, even more than now, how your health will be treated.
And the costs will increase, just like they have been anyway.
The rich will still get better health care. They’ll pay for what they want. The best doctors won’t see anyone BUT rich people because they can get paid more. And the poor people will get the same kind of substandard care, but worse–they won’t have a job.
Insurance for all….sounds good doesn’t it?
Update: Here’s an idea! How about innovation?
Cross-posted at RightWingNews.com
My Latest Pajamas Media Article: Yes, You Can Be Fit And Fat
Wednesday, September 17th, 2008Here’s a snippet:
The definition of “healthy” has serious ramifications both medically and economically. People may or may not change their lifestyles based on bad information when they should be taking a different course.
Read the whole thing here.
