As a hospital worker I am so sick of seeing the huge whales that come in and are going for knee replacements and other orthotic replacement! WTF?! You get another knee to have grinded away by your enormous size, that will cost taxpayers $30 000?! If not more?! Ugh…sometimes I think we should start euthanizing stupid people who have no sense of control. Sick sick sick!
This article appears in Sep 11-17, 2008.
If someone is going to hold us accountable for their bad life choices, I want the person getting the surgery to make certain commitments. Weight loss commitments either through excercise or surgery.
I couldn’t agree more. As someone who has lost over 50 pounds through healthy eating and exercise, I simply don’t understand how someone can get up to 300 lbs. or more and not clue in to what it’s doing to their bodies. Morid obesity seems to be an epidemic and while I don’t agree with euthanizing these fatties, they should, as Bad Guy said, have to make a commitment to lose weight or pay for their own operations. Why should the rest of us pay for some tub to get new knees when what they really need is a fucking set of wheels attached to their cankles?
While we are at it, lets get rid of addiction services since those people made bad life choices too. And lets stop giving cancer treatments to smokers. In fact, lets stop paying for other people’s heath problems all together and go to a private system. Then we can buy insurance to cover us against the ginormous costs of for-profit health care and insurance companies. But wait, doesn’t insurance work by a bunch of people getting together and pooling their money to cover the costs in case something happens to you or someone else in the group…no…that’s too much like taxes, forget the insurance. Let’s all take care of ourselves. We’ll put a little bit of our hard earned money into the bank each month and hope we don’t get sick before we have enough saved up to cover the health care costs. Yeah, that’ll work. I am so sick and tired of health care bitchers thinking they are somehow footing the bill for other people’s health care problems. You pay taxes to cover the services YOU use….health care, roads, public education, etc. Some people need knee replacements, some people need grade 12, some people need a sidewalk. Taxes are the cheapest way to get these services. Accept it.
amen miles.
Are you fuckers missing a chromosome or something? Hope you skinny ass bastards develop a thyroid problem and need new knees (or wheels on your cankles). You are a bunch of whiney, ignorant retards. What about the smoker who needs chemo/transplant? Are you going to deny them too?
Can you imagine if the bitch was about skinny ass bitches who need knee replacements and back adjustments from jogging on pavement for years? You get another knee to have grinded away by your obsessive running, that will cost taxpayers $30 000?! If not more?! Ugh…sometimes I think we should start euthanizing stupid people who have no sense of control. Sick sick sick!
The thyroid problem doesn’t cut it, sweetheart, only a handful of people can make that claim. Most obese people are that way because they have no fucking self-control and will use any excuse they can to justify their gluttony. What’s worse is that these people will raise more fat slobs to suck on a fast food tit – eventually there’ll be 10 year olds taking heart attacks in the playgrounds. At least the skinny jogger is doing something for their health and it’s unlikely they’ll end up with heart problems, diabetes and all the other wonderful diseases caused by blubber.By the way, I’m not skinny but I don’t need a Toledo scale to weigh myself on.
I Love the Author of this Bitch…We should start euthanizing stupid people. No truer words were ever spoken. And like miles suggested (I am taking it out of context) let us stop treating cancers too. Well, at least the ones where the mortality rate is higher than the actual *cure rate. We can continue this to the drug addicts too. As well as the criminals, career type anyway. The world is getting to be a better place just by thinking about it. Obviously people that have a medical condition that the result is way way way over weight, and hand to mouth disease does not count as a medical condition.
Ooops, I got so excited that I forgot to finish my sentence…Obviously people that have a medical condition that the result is way way way over weight, and hand-to-mouth disease does not count as a medical condition, are exempt from being euthanized.
It would be interesting to find out how many people require joint replacements due to too much physical activity (i.e. running) compared to the numbers who require new joints because of obesity. I’ve read news stories that suggest we’re experiencing an epidemic of overweight people needing new hips, knees, etc. but you don’t hear much about athletes being a burden on the system, which would lead me to believe it’s not nearly as common. Does anyone know if this is indeed the case?
Jennie, I don’t have the numbers handy and can’t be bothered to goggle them. But, as I understand it, Athletes do suffer a lot of activity-related injuries however, being generally fit and often younger when they get their injuries they heal faster and suffer fewer complications. Also, i think there have been some recent studies that show that runners (for example) have a lower incedence of arthritis and joint injury in older age. So, overall, being an athlete is probably less costly than being unfit.
Public Healthcare should cover things uncaused by personal choices. However I guess then we’d get into the “Did this guy have a heart attack because of the fact he ate cheese burgers every day? Or did he just eat them every other day” type conversations. So while I don’t agree with paying for something caused by someone else (over eating or smoking), it would open a door for other weird debates.
That’s what I find interesting. It’s a common occurrence on this board: someone suggests the obese are putting a strain on our health care system, then someone else immediately pipes up and says that people who run, for example, are a burden on the system. I have yet to turn on the nightly news and see some doctor urging people to give up exercise, yet just about every night there’s a health care professional pleading with people to get their weight under control. I just wonder if people who exercise regularly (I’m not talking about athletes, as they make up a very small percentage of the population) require any more of the health care system than average Joe.
Every operation I’ve had and every trip to emergency has been sports related. I’m just saying, if we don’t discriminate against the athletic, then why fat people? Not all choose to be fat.
jennie, i am pretty sure that over weight people suffer as many injuries as people that excerise, however later in life, things that are in better condition such as the heart and lungs are more likely fail people that didnt do anything physical. The big thing is that doctors are looking out for your future, and exercising is healthy both now and for the long run…. nothing good comes from NOT exercising in terms of long term health
I’m not saying we should discriminate against anyone. I’m just wondering how the numbers play out. How many hospitalizations are the results of athletics, compared to how many are the result of unhealthy lifestyle choices, like obesity (which in many –although not all- cases is a choice). If people who exercise are such a strain on the system, how come we never hear about them? Is it a big cover-up on the part of the medical community?
It would be an interesting study….maybe someone at the coast should look into it and do an article on it. ???? I’d like to know the results also.
There def should be some sort of accountability. I dont think anyone should be denied medical treatment but if you need your knee replaced because your so fat your body cant handle it what argument do you have against getting your self in better shape? Same goes for smokers… you need cancer treatment because of your smoking and it helps you and you live that person should not be able to smoke afterwards. Its a very slippery slop of telling people what they can and cannot do so there is prolly no solution.How about they give a gym membership with every new knee and a years supply of the patch with every new lung
No, no cover up. Obesity is in the news because it is a problem for North americans. So is smoking. And cancer. The athlete arguement is brought up because people CHOOSE to be athletes and can be injured as a result. So if someone is going to say, “i don’t want to pay for fat people because they have a choice in teh matter” then you have to say the same for athletes. People cannot take the attitude that “I’m sick and tired of paying for fat people to get medical treatment” when the reality is that fat people pay taxes too. It is THEIR health care system too, funding in equal part by THEIR tax dollers. As a society we have a vested interest in reducing obesity, and that is best done by attacking the causes of obesity, not fat people. Universal health care has to remain universal. Once you start saying someone is more entitled to health care than another, you are starting down a very slipery slope that can undo one of the best medical systems in the world.
you never really hear about athletes becoming a strain as they are injuries that are common with non athletic folks, but the extra injuries that are beceause one doesnt work out, are what are deemed “extra strain”.
I think you’re missing my point. What I’m asking is, are people who exercise regularly (I’m not talking about elite athletes, as they’re so few and far between) any more of a burden on the health care system than average Joe who gets hits by a car crossing the street, or sustains severe burns while cooking, for example?
OK, so in order for athletes to place a burden on pour system we would actually need to have more than a handfull of athletes in our society!! Instead, what we have is 60% of our population waddling(if they are lucky) their fat asses through the hospital doors to deal with numerous diseases which are related to their fatness in the first place. By 2017 it is projected that NS will be spending 50% of tax money on healthcare. This will only get worse as the years go by. Incidences of childhood diabetes, hypertension and obesity has increases almost 20 % in the last few years. If we as a society do not deal with this fat epidemic we will be screwed out of even having a health care system any longer. I think that fat people who are recieving transplants, replacement surgies and what have you should be made to lose weight first or they have to pay for it themselves. It is not fair to those of us who maintain our health and therefore need very little from the health care system. We could actually have $$ to spend on walking paths and bike trails.In response to Jennie’s question, have you been to a hospital lately? If you have you will notice that they are filled to the brims with the fat and obese, “normal” people are far and few in between. In fact, obesity has become so prevalent that overweight people now appear “normal” by our standards.Fat people are not putting a strain on the health care system, they are strangling the last bit of life right out of it.Just remember, Cardiovascular disease is the most expensive disease to treat.
There are plenty of studies that show that dying sooner saves the system money. So your fat smoker is actually doing your wallet a favor. Meanwhile the rail-thin jogger will live to be 100 but will need special care for 20 years when the Alzheimer’s sets in at 80. This is life… nobody gets out alive. Shut up and enjoy it.