Bloody hell, did I get out of the wrong side of the bed and wake up in the dark ages? From today’s Evening Times:
COUCH-potato Britons whose unhealthy lifestyles make them ill should be penalised when it comes to medical treatment, according to a new survey.
One in three people wants financial penalties slapped on people who smoke, drink and are obese.A severe one in 10 people in Britain takes the hard-line view that smokers and drinkers who become ill should be refused treatment altogether.
The study from Bupa also revealed 44% of Britons feel the Government should be most responsible for looking after their health.
Britons say they want more nannying from the Government on health advice, not less, with four in 10 wanting even more lifestyle guidance.
While three quarters believe the Government should introduce annual health screenings for all adults, almost half believe the taxes should rise on cigarettes and alcohol.
Comments
0 responses to “No fun”
I mis-read that as:
One in three people wants financial penalties slapped on people who smoke, drink and eat cheese.
It’s much funnier that way.
Still, at least we can look forward to that tax discount from the government if we are refused treatment.
Can’t we? Where’s that treadmill?
The more of these surveys I read, the more I’m convinced that the lot of the human race would be significantly improved if we killed pretty much everybody. I dunno if it’s the public as a whole or just the people these surveys find, but they’re fucking idiots. This week’s most appalling example:
http://society.guardian.co.uk/crimeandpunishment/story/0,8150,1647389,00.html
“One in three people believes that women who behave flirtatiously are at least partially responsible if they are raped, a report published today reveals. A similar number think that women are partially or wholly responsible for being raped if they are drunk, and more than a quarter believe women are responsible if they wear sexy or revealing clothing.”
Sorry, in a serious/angry mood today.
The trouble with the penalties-for-unhealthiness thing is that, as long as the NHS exists, those arguments actually are sound. If you have just one pot of limited money to share between everyone, you have to make decisions about which ones to treat. If people pay for their own healthcare, that’s simply not an issue.
> as long as the NHS exists, those arguments actually are sound.
If the behaviours weren’t taxed then fair enough, but the tax on tobacco is more than six times the cost of treating tobacco-related ailments on the NHS, and that doesn’t factor in the other savings from cig addicts dying early. So arguably, every smoker is not only paying for their own healthcare, but for five other people’s healthcare too. The inconsiderate, smoking bastards ;-)
I do agree with you that you’ve got limited money and have to allocate things accordingly, but that’s the problem with the NHS: it’s grown from a safety net to a catch-all, which simply isn’t sustainable.
What I do find a bit worrying about that survey is that the behaviours described are much more prevalent among the poor than the well off. I’ve just finished reading Fat Land, which presents a pretty compelling picture of the links between obesity and poverty. There’s more to it than gluttony, certainly.
> it’s grown from a safety net to a catch-all
I think the problem was that it was never even intended to be a safety-net. It’s supposed to be a catch-all. I’ve never been able to figure out why.
Now we have this bizarre situation where the NHS decide not to treat some patients due to lack of money, even when the patient is rich.
I refer the honourable gentleman to our previous blog debates on this very subject :)