Ambulances start charging extra for obese patients

[Aardvark Soup]

Ambulances shouldn't directly charge patients at all. Paying for health care should be taken care of by their insurance companies. I truly hope Obama succeeds in reforming the ridiculous American health care system.

 

[Booze Zombie]

It's amazingly immoral...

 

[r0qu3]

As i believe that everybody should be handled the same...


...and to those of you who say "aah they should slim down"...thats really like saying "oh you drive a wheelchair? its heavier and more hassle you should pay more"

And no despite they made themselves that way...if you call an ambulance its an emergency and those things shouldn't be a topic then...putting a price tag on it is disgusting...

no i'm not obese and yes as a german i'm used to NHS...


boy do people suck..

 

[Lullabye]

I'm quite surprised that nobody here actually mentioned economics, namely externalities. In the case of obese people, there is indeed a social cost incurred as they require more public goods as compared to the rest of society. (it can be a simple case of building wider walkways, bigger public trains and buses etc, in this case bigger ambulances with weight lifting equipements. All of these COST MONEY)

Now the question is, who should bear this cost? Should it be the entire society at large? If that is so the simple thing is to increase taxes across the board. (those who ask the govt to suck it up or ask the airlines to simply build bigger seats without charging higher prices are just being unrealistic and STUPID and SELFISH IMO. You simply can't do this, resources don't pop up for free) Similarly to drinking and smoking, which have very high social costs, the govt has chosen to tax them directly (through tobacco and alcohol tariffs) to compensate for the direct/indirect costs they incur to society. In the case of obesity, it seems that they are going down the same path.

So the question we should be asking is, should 2/3 of non-obese people be sharing the cost incurred by obesity? Or should we practice a price discriminatary system where only those who contribute to the cost pay more?

Personally, i say tax the hell out of these fat people. It is a fact that they do use MORE, so at least have the balls to suck the price instead of expecting other people to wipe ur arse after you shit. This has no implication on whether you are fat due to genetics or wad not. It is a FACT that you use up more resources, but you are entitled to your opinions on whether you deserved to be charged more or not.

Now i'm sure that some people will say that then thin people should be charged less. The fact is i'm actually part of the thin brigade (weiging 100 lbs 23 year old male), but we must consider the fact that there is an optimal size that is required by society. So in equality, we should be paying the same as a normal person. That being said so, obese ones who requires more than the optimal size should hence need to be charged more.

Ok next, I've read above where some people are scared it's gonna be a slippery slope arguement and pregnant women and perhaps even disabled people will be taxed more eventially.

Answer is NO. Think logically, pregnant women are actually providing added social benefits (due to the infertility rates) and hence govt are more likely to give benefits to them (which is actually happening in most part of the developed world, tax incentives for kids, monetary payouts and what not). On the other hand, society has deemed it alright to absorb the costs of disabled people OUT OF KINDNESS and MORALITY. So there we haf it. Fat people who think they deserve this kindness should seriously gtfo.

When are you going for parliament? I'm voting for you.

case by case arguments?check. Good vocabulary? check. kepps me interested even though its a long post? check.
i sir, second this opinion.

 

[Lavi]

If it's a child, don't charge it.

Any adult can go fuck themselves.

 

[GundamSentinel]

are they genetically fat or is it self-induced?

Is there even such a thing as genetically fat? Were there genetically fat people in medieval times? Ancient Egypt? Stone age? Must be a genetic change induced by WOII chemicals...

Nah, have the fatties pay for their ride. I've heard reports of people trying to run cars on human fat. Maybe that's an idea.

hmm, well lets see, i know (a friend) someone who eats just as much like a pig as me, has the same habits as me (computer all the time, not much physical activity) and yet i'm skinny as a rail and he's pushing 300 pounds. Genetics decide how your body stores fat. i'm not saying genetically fat people get HUGE like SOME people around here, but if you're a large person and your parents are large people then chances are you got your fat-storage characteristics from them. i hope your single-mindedness can be changed by the knowledge that there's different body types which store fat in different and sometimes more obvious areas due to evolutionary changes to adapt to environments. not ALL humans store fat the same way, stop being such a duche.

Dude, I'm not saying that genetics can't or won't control the way you store fat. In fact, I get fat more easy than people around me. Must be some kind of metabolic thing or whatever. I'm just saying that even if you're genetically inclined to being overweight it does not mean that you have to get fat. I used to be a little on the beefy side, but not anymore, because I pay attention to what I eat and do. Nobody needs to get fat just because their genetics say so.
Being overweight is a social problem, not a medical one. Try to give it some thought.