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Should medically judged fat people pay higher medical costs? [W:87]

Should medically judged fat people pay higher medical costs?

  • Yes

    Votes: 31 42.5%

  • No

    Votes: 42 57.5%
  • Total voters
    73
Ryan5 said:
Ohhhh so you look at those pictures of him and then turn around and claim he's not medically fat eh?
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Okay.

Guess that's all we need to know about you then. :)
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DO you have a medical license that would qualify you to determine that someone is obese? If not then you cant say someone is actually obese medically. You may of course state your opinion and perhaps you may be right, but that doesnt mean that your opinion is meaningful.

BTW if you consider that guy obese then I would venture to say then that most Americans by your opinion are obese making them the norm.
 
Ryan5 said:
Absolutely madness and wrong.

If a medical doctor says you are overweight then you are officially unhealthy.

It honestly makes me sick that you people would lie to children and threaten their health with such fallacies.

Christ..
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Doctors are frequently wrong. thats why they call it "practicing medicine"
 
imagep said:
Doctors are frequently wrong. thats why they call it "practicing medicine"
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It's going to be pretty hard to find a doctor that gives a "wrong" obesity diagnosis.......
 
Bodhisattva said:
But why would you say, SOS just another day? I have not made statements like that before...

... and I know what is going on from Fox's point of view, at least.
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Forget it, I'm sorry I said it. That is just an old American slogan or response to the question of what's going on or how are you. We used it all the time at work.
 
Ryan5 said:
It's going to be pretty hard to find a doctor that gives a "wrong" obesity diagnosis.......
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Any doctor who based their opinion on BMI, without taking into consideration body composition and frame size, is highly likely to be wrong. Which would be most doctors, as BMI is the current medical standard.

Of course some doctors do have common sense, but they don't dare go against the accepted medical standards due to risk of malpractice litigation.

I mentioned this earlier, but I am in pretty darned good shape (for someone who will be 50 on his next birthday), and can pretty much kick any 25 year olds arse in the gym, yet I am officially defined as being overweight based upon BMI. I don't know of anyone who has visible abs that would be considered a fatty.
 
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ChrisL said:
You don't look overweight at all to me.
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That's right... that swimming pool pic with my daughter... right? That is what I mean.
 
Perotista said:
Forget it, I'm sorry I said it. That is just an old American slogan or response to the question of what's going on or how are you. We used it all the time at work.
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I find I'm using it at home a lot more than I used to, also! :lamo:
 
Perotista said:
Forget it, I'm sorry I said it. That is just an old American slogan or response to the question of what's going on or how are you. We used it all the time at work.
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All good. I understand the context of that saying, I was just not sure if you were implying it towards me or in general.
 
Ryan5 said:
Absolutely madness and wrong.

If a medical doctor says you are overweight then you are officially unhealthy.

It honestly makes me sick that you people would lie to children and threaten their health with such fallacies.

Christ..
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ummm... what? Where am I lying to children? :lol:

... and you call me unhealthy? This is me and my daughter around that time.

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Try to work harder on not sounding like a jackass. :lol:
 
imagep said:
Because you may one day be unhealthy, and if not that, you may one day be old.

Wouldn't it suck if you became unhealthy tomorrow, due to no fault of your own, and became uninsurable or had to pay a million dollars a year for insurance?

Of course personally I believe that universal major medical insurance should be provided for every citizen, and funded by the existing tax dollars that are already spent on healthcare, augmented with sin taxes on unhealthy foods or dangerous behaviors.
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We have universal, and for the most part, free health care here. I am in favour of it.
 
Bodhisattva said:
ummm... what? Where am I lying to children? :lol:

... and you call me unhealthy? This is me and my daughter around that time.

:
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Then vote yes.

:)

and try not to sound crazy. Doctors are not usually wrong hate to inform you.
 
Ryan5 said:
It's going to be pretty hard to find a doctor that gives a "wrong" obesity diagnosis.......
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over weight and obesity are arbitrary points...
 
Bodhisattva said:
Being funny means you lose 20 pounds... meaning he is actually underweight.
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He's fat. He's unhealthy and medically fat.

It's obvious.

You're a lunatic if you think he's not fat sorry to say.
 
Ryan5 said:
Then vote yes.

:)

and try not to sound crazy. Doctors are not usually wrong hate to inform you.
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Mine was... and they are wrong more than you think, to be honest. ... and I did vote yes,
 
Ryan5 said:
He's fat. He's unhealthy and medically fat.

It's obvious.

You're a lunatic if you think he's not fat sorry to say.
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But he loses 20 lbs for being funny... did you take that into consideration before hurling around inaccuracies?
 
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Who thinks I'm irrational for believing that is fat?
 
ChrisL said:
Your view on this is MUCH too narrow. I don't think you know much about the medical field and the causes and effects of diseases and that even females and males have different risk factors for different diseases just because of gender ALONE.
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You are listing correlations. For example, African Americans are more likely to develop type 2 diabetes. That is because they are statistically more likely to be obese. You are more likely to develop it at age 45 or older because by then poor diet has taxed your pancreas a lot. The fact is, Type 2 diabetes results from insulin resistance. Insulin resistance results from poor diet and lack of exercise.

Even if obesity was not a risk factor for diabetes, it would still be a risk factor for heart disease, joint issues, mobility issues, and some cancers. The fact is, it is a condition that in the vast majority of cases is the result of poor health choices, and that results in hundreds of billions of dollars a year in additional healthcare costs. If you speed you pay a higher auto insurance rate. If you own a dog that has a history of attacking people, you pay a higher home owners insurance rate. That is how insurance works. So why should health insurance be any different for conditions like smoking or obesity? You should be free to be as obese as you want. You should be free to smoke if you want. However, that freedom should not extend so far that others that make better life choices have to subsidize your poor health choices.
 
polgara said:
I find I'm using it at home a lot more than I used to, also! :lamo:
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No big thing Pol, I just thought it fit the question. It just popped into my mind and my fingers did the rest. Anyway, getting close to bedtime, I suppose I will be doing the SOS tomorrow, until then.
 
Bodhisattva said:
All good. I understand the context of that saying, I was just not sure if you were implying it towards me or in general.
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No, just in a general sort of way. It is just a phrase I and others use all the time. It just popped into my head when I read your question and my fingers did the rest. No thought given it one way or the other.
 
Ryan5 said:
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Who thinks I'm irrational for believing that is fat?
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He is at least overweight. Moreover, he is carrying the bulk of his body fat in his core. From a health perspective, fat around the organs is the worst kind (its much better to be pear shaped if you are fat than apple shaped in terms of health). I think he should be free to be thin or fat, but I also think actuaries should be able to price his health coverage premiums in accordance with the additional risk his being overweight results in.
 
imagep said:
I agree. So if we have a sin tax on something that one doesn't eat too much of, it's not costing them much is it, and thus isn't causing them much harm. then if we use the revenue from that tax to provide them with insurance, they get every penny back, and more. Only those who eat an excessive amount of junk food would be financially disincentivized by this, and those are the people that we should want to discourage eating junk food.

They also pay for the sin of creating their own poor health, instead of ME having to pay for the results of THEIR bad eating habits.

It just seems like the most practical and least harmful solution to the problem.
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Well, I don't have a problem with that. If it causes a few people to buy fewer chips, that's a good thing. But I don't think that's enough to solve the problem of obesity in the country. I don't think that's the solution. I don't think it will result in fewer obese people or fewer ins. claims, I suppose is my point.

But if there were a tax put on chips or sugar, I wouldn't fight it. I don't buy enough of those things for it to matter, like you say. I DO loves me some sugar, though! I fight the urge all the time. I pretty much restrict it to special occasions (which is why I mentioned Easter..I tend to save my sugar fixes for holidays, and then buy only my very favorite sugar candy. Those Peeps are pretty good.)

Sugar is a big problem, IMO. I've come to think of it as poison. It does so much damage. I used to eat sweets quite a lot. As I started reading more on health, and got older and tried to change my wicked ways, I gradually cut sugar out as a regular thing. But white bread is just as bad. And honey has a higher glycemic level than sugar, but is thought of as healthier. (I love honey, too.) That's one reason why I think a sin tax doesn't make sense. There is really no way to pinpoint which food is worse than another, really. They are all okay in moderation, and they are all bad in excess. If you're talking aobut a tax on all foods, then you're just talking about inflation. Which doesn't help anyone.
 
JumpinJack said:
Sugar is a big problem, IMO. I've come to think of it as poison. It does so much damage. I used to eat sweets quite a lot. As I started reading more on health, and got older and tried to change my wicked ways, I gradually cut sugar out as a regular thing
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Sugar isn't a poison.

Sugar is the fuel on which our bodies run. Without it, we would die.

The problem with diabetes (both type 1 and type 2) is that it interferes with our ability to properly process sugar in order to get the energy from it that we need to function. Instead, it just accumulates in the blood, where too much of it leads to all sorts of damage all over the body. With type 2, it also tends to get converted in excessive amounts to fat, even when not enough of it is being processed into energy.
 
I voted yes.

Rich people got more money...they should pay more for things, including taxes.

Fat people got more fat...they should pay, too.
 
JumpinJack said:
Yes, he's overweight. The word fat sounds insulting, to me. That's that actor...what's his name?
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Oh this is such bs I'm sorry.

The man is FAT. Who cares about some distinction between obese and fat if we aren't talking about sumo wrestlers? They're the same thing.

The guy is medically fat (OR IF THAT OFFENDS YOU, dun dun dun, overweight!!!!!). He is not healthy with that stomach. Anyone who says he's healthy with that stomach is delusional beyond help (which I'm not denying some probably are).


I can't stand it when I'm at work and some fat guy who CLEARLY is about 40 pounds overweight (FAT) starts to rant about what great shape he's in. We need to call a fat person a fat person in this country already. It's become insane.



(Hypothetical) Look, I think it's great that you aren't 300 pounds at 34. I really do. But let's also be honest. Being visibly fat while still not being 300 pounds isn't a whole lot better from a medical standpoint. You're still royally screwed over.
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