That didn't fly in my household. I was raised to believe if your own behavior created or contributed to a problem, you had no grounds to whine about the problem until you changed your own behavior to correct/help correct the problem.



That's nonsense. I had the human experience of being 30 pounds overweight. The real solution was to reduce the amount of food and monitor the kind of food I fed my face, and to become more active. It's not rocket science. And you're not any less capable of making healthier choices.



Oh my freakin' goodness. How ever have those who are not obese in the United States escaped the evil clutches of all of those fat super blob promoting corporations?

The MacDonald's Corporation made me eat the Big Mac, super-sized fries, and drink that large shake. Frito Lay made me buy and eat that whole bag of chips. The Keebler elves made me eat that whole bag of cookies. Anheuser-Busch made me drink that six-pack of beer.

Not buying that for one second. Corporations don't turn people into super blobs...people turn themselves into super blobs. What ever happened to self-control?

If you go back and check you'll see that "the person" was the one who opened the door to the "morality" discussion. If one is going to point the "morality" and "heart bankruptcy" finger addressing an issue, they first need to check the three pointing backwards at themself.

No matter how you spin it, you're NOT doing the right moral thing or having the right heart for yourself or society when you maintain an obese lifestyle. And you ARE contributing to the high cost of health care and shortened national life expectancy, two markers being used to impugn our health care system. That is a textbook definition of hypocrisy!



And that leaves me, an Independent, taking inventory and asking myself "what do I need to do for myself to insure that my own house stays in healthy order and does not contribute to a social problem or be a burden to society."

And that is not sanctimony.
That is the original American spirit.

So? The household you were raised in had some serious flaws. Evidently, you haven't seemed to overcome all of them.

I, too was taught to take care of my issues and, for the most part do. I was not taught that the value of an individual's ideas or thoughts on an issue are diminished if the individual making those assessments has not taken care of all this issues in their life. If I am a smoker, I have not right to criticize tobacco companies for putting drugs in the tabacco? Of course I do. That's just stupid. Should I quit? Of course. But, I can't have an opinion regarding corporate abuse until I do? The people who raised you left out some serious logic.



The current health care system is broken. It is broken for the people making good choices and it is broken for the people making bad choices. If only the people making good choices were able to speak up, we'd end up with a system designed by you. Dog help us! (I want a bumper magnetic bumper sticker that says "Dog is my co-pilot!")



Corporations play the odds. They know that for every one hunred who withstand the intense pressure from tv, billboards, magazines, radio, etc., there is one or dozens or hundreds or thousands who fall to their means. They have the time, the clout, and the money to wait.

Anheuser-Busch made me drink that six-pack of beer.

Hey, I'm guilty of a Quarter Pounder with Cheese a couple times a year, but "Anheuser-Bush" beer? Now you've insulted me! I'd sooner drink horse-piss.



I think the whole thread started out about the health care system and got off on an Iky piss on Beavis moment (and, as a faithful reader, I know there are plenty of Beavis piss on Iky moments. You two are started to get a bit boring). That some people have less self control and/or make bad choices is irrelevant. The system is broken for the ones who make good choices, too. It's just f'in broken and if you can't see that I'm not sure where we go from here. We spend more than any other nation and we get worse results than a lot of them. Better personal choices will help the individual, but not the broken system. It, simply needs to be changed.

Amen! America's weight and health care for all are two separate issues.

Both need addressing, but arguing that health care for all shouldn't be in place until America's weight issue is managed seems like an weightless argument, just as health care should be a free market interprise with the ability to exclude a large segment of the population.

Is it acceptable that part of our population is without health care?

Apparently it is if you are a little heavy!

Too bad for the overweight person working at MacDonald's that, because of the current health care system, has to decide between paying for health care and rent. And too bad for that person when he gets something like, oh I don't know, skin cancer that drains his small bank account and causes him to go bankrupt because, well, it was his stupid fault for being fat.

Can we agree all should have access to equal and fair medical insurance which would be equal to what you have access to while working for a large corporation and then add in a "fat tax"?

^^ just a thought ^^

We could have agreed to that.



If we had Universal, Single Payer insurance, this would be the case, and we could continue our agreement.



I think we may part company here. How would that work? Would the multi-billionaire fatso pay the same as a welfare queen fatso? How would she pay, anyway? And, if she didn't pay, would we deny her health care?



Keep it up. We need more and more.

And the ones who raised you should have explained the meaning of the word hypocrisy.

Back in the day when I was raging against "the man", I heard Eldridge Cleaver speak. You're probably familiar with what he said, it's been around since, and most likely before, in various forms: "what we're saying is that you're either part of the solution or part of the problem."

If you smoke, you're in bed with the tobacco companies and are part of the problem. Be part of the solution. Don't smoke so you're not buying their poisonous product.

If you are obese, you're in bed with the high cost of health care and a lower national life expectancy. Again, part of the problem. Be part of the solution. Maintain a healthy weight.



Horse-piss isn't advertised as "America's Lager."
That's why I used Anheuser-Bush.




No, actually, it didn't.
It started out about B.O. and his administration's hypocrisy surrounding "tax". Beavis played dumb and switched it up to Nobamacare, immorality and heart bankruptcy (mine, Republicans, conservatives) and how Japan's health care system (which is in a major crisis of its own) is so much better than ours.



As I pointed out earlier, the WHO stopped years ago trying to rate health care systems by determining who gets better results because it is just too complex to calculate accurately.

But if it makes you feel better to say "we spend more than any other nation and we get worse results than a lot of them" (accuracy be damned), then knock yourself out. Just be advised: not in Japan.

The biggest determinant of high health care costs is gender.

About 33% more is spent for the healthcare of women than men. Oddly, this isn't because of pregnancy but because of their longer life.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1361028/

Smoking and obesity may shorten lives, but they don't result in greater than average lifetime healthcare costs.

http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pmed.0050029

Lots of good reasons to adopt healthier lifestyles, but saving the healthcare system isn't one of them.

So the point that Iky tried to make is bogus. The way to generate maximum healthcare costs is to live a long time. Iky's ostentatiously healthy lifestyle will result in greater lifetime healthcare costs.

And one that wasn't made in this thread.