Labour's desire to force people to be healthy
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Original post by Rinsed
To be honest yes. Whilst laudable aims, when did government decide that it was part of their job?
I'd rather they stuck to maintaining law and order and providing public services, their raison d'etre, than started wringing their hands about how many pies we all eat.
I'd rather they stuck to maintaining law and order and providing public services, their raison d'etre, than started wringing their hands about how many pies we all eat.
Since they started paying for the NHS which treats you?
Since they started caring about the children you bring up who have no control over their diet?
Since they realised obesity, smoking, excessive alcohol comsumption was damaging our nation in diverse ways?
Wringing hands suggests worrying about something but not doing anything about it. This is the opposite - giving proactive solutions to our country's health problems. Ed isn't saying you can't eat 5 pies a day; he's just saying that we shouldn't let people encourage it.
Original post by DarkWhite
Since they started paying for the NHS which treats you?
Since they started caring about the children you bring up who have no control over their diet?
Since they realised obesity, smoking, excessive alcohol comsumption was damaging our nation in diverse ways?
Wringing hands suggests worrying about something but not doing anything about it. This is the opposite - giving proactive solutions to our country's health problems. Ed isn't saying you can't eat 5 pies a day; he's just saying that we shouldn't let people encourage it.
Since they started caring about the children you bring up who have no control over their diet?
Since they realised obesity, smoking, excessive alcohol comsumption was damaging our nation in diverse ways?
Wringing hands suggests worrying about something but not doing anything about it. This is the opposite - giving proactive solutions to our country's health problems. Ed isn't saying you can't eat 5 pies a day; he's just saying that we shouldn't let people encourage it.
They don't pay for the NHS, the taxpayer does. Taxpayers are all entitled to use it.
Here's me thinking that parents took care of their children not governments.
How does obesity , smoking and excessive alcohol comsumption damage the nation? It damages the individual who does it. Should the obese, smokers and the drunk be arrested for treason?
Justifying government meddling in our own choices reduces us to children and lets the state get more and more involved.
(edited 9 years ago)
Original post by Falcatas
They don't pay for the NHS, the taxpayer does. Taxpayers are all entitled to use it.
Here's me thinking that parents took care of their children not governments.
How does obesity , smoking and excessive alcohol comsumption damage the nation? It damages the individual who does it. Should the obese, smokers and the drunk be arrested for treason?
Here's me thinking that parents took care of their children not governments.
How does obesity , smoking and excessive alcohol comsumption damage the nation? It damages the individual who does it. Should the obese, smokers and the drunk be arrested for treason?
Yes, and the government has a responsibility to manage NHS spending, a significant amount of which can be avoided through education.
Parents do take care of their children, but do you believe in punching children? No? Good job we have government-established laws to prevent that then.
If you need to ask that last question then I feel you need to think a bit more about the direct and indirect effects of health conditions and why the government may want to encourage people to be healthier.
Umm, that would be responsible preventative cost control from a health secretary, unlike our current one who seems to think his job is to destroy the NHS, promote Charles' crackpot homoeopathy beliefs and sell off our health data to predatory insurers.
It can also be justified from a Tory people-as-cattle mindset: sickly workers cannot be productive. This was the impetus for the foundation of the welfare state in the early 20th century, they realised when they called the poor up to fight their dirty war that they were all too malnourished to be effective soldiers. Also if you give people fattening food and cigarettes they all get cancer and die without using up all of their pension.
It can also be justified from a Tory people-as-cattle mindset: sickly workers cannot be productive. This was the impetus for the foundation of the welfare state in the early 20th century, they realised when they called the poor up to fight their dirty war that they were all too malnourished to be effective soldiers. Also if you give people fattening food and cigarettes they all get cancer and die without using up all of their pension.
Original post by DarkWhite
Yes, and the government has a responsibility to manage NHS spending, a significant amount of which can be avoided through education.
Parents do take care of their children, but do you believe in punching children? No? Good job we have government-established laws to prevent that then.
If you need to ask that last question then I feel you need to think a bit more about the direct and indirect effects of health conditions and why the government may want to encourage people to be healthier.
Parents do take care of their children, but do you believe in punching children? No? Good job we have government-established laws to prevent that then.
If you need to ask that last question then I feel you need to think a bit more about the direct and indirect effects of health conditions and why the government may want to encourage people to be healthier.
Like I previously mentioned, people living longer costs the state more money.
Punching a child is not even remotely comparable to letting your kid eat junk food now and again. The government rightly so should establish laws to prevent parents from beating their children. They however should not establish laws to make sure all children get "5 a day" .
The government has no legitimacy to encourage people to be healthy. Making healthy food cheaper perhaps but not by making unhealthy food more expensive.
All this nudging is an assault on our ability to rationally think and make our own conscious decisions.
Original post by Falcatas
Like I previously mentioned, people living longer costs the state more money.
Punching a child is not even remotely comparable to letting your kid eat junk food now and again. The government rightly so should establish laws to prevent parents from beating their children. They however should not establish laws to make sure all children get "5 a day" .
The government has no legitimacy to encourage people to be healthy. Making healthy food cheaper perhaps but not by making unhealthy food more expensive.
All this nudging is an assault on our ability to rationally think and make our own conscious decisions.
Punching a child is not even remotely comparable to letting your kid eat junk food now and again. The government rightly so should establish laws to prevent parents from beating their children. They however should not establish laws to make sure all children get "5 a day" .
The government has no legitimacy to encourage people to be healthy. Making healthy food cheaper perhaps but not by making unhealthy food more expensive.
All this nudging is an assault on our ability to rationally think and make our own conscious decisions.
Nobody has enacted a law saying people should have to eat 5 a day though. All they're saying is that advertisers shouldn't be given free reign.
Nobody is telling you how to think or make decisions. It's regulation on how tobacco is advertised, not 1984. Won't even bother debating with such strawmen.
Original post by DarkWhite
Since they started paying for the NHS which treats you?
Since they started caring about the children you bring up who have no control over their diet?
Since they realised obesity, smoking, excessive alcohol comsumption was damaging our nation in diverse ways?
Wringing hands suggests worrying about something but not doing anything about it. This is the opposite - giving proactive solutions to our country's health problems. Ed isn't saying you can't eat 5 pies a day; he's just saying that we shouldn't let people encourage it.
Since they started caring about the children you bring up who have no control over their diet?
Since they realised obesity, smoking, excessive alcohol comsumption was damaging our nation in diverse ways?
Wringing hands suggests worrying about something but not doing anything about it. This is the opposite - giving proactive solutions to our country's health problems. Ed isn't saying you can't eat 5 pies a day; he's just saying that we shouldn't let people encourage it.
Oh, they pay for it do they? When they stop taking half of the average worker's pay in tax I'll start feeling appropriately grateful.
I'm not sure I like the idea that the state knows better how to bring up a child than its parents. Likewise, it is certainly not their job to try to shape the nation into some form they think better. If excessive drink is 'damaging the nation' it is because large numbers of people are making free, independent choices.
If people are provided with the right information about the negative effects of drink, sugar, et cetera to be able to make informed choices – and I contend that they are – then the government should stay the **** out of our legal activities. The idea that Ed 'wouldn't let people encourage it' demonstrates his authoritarian instincts directly.
Original post by Falcatas
People living for longer is more of a burden for the NHS than people smoking, drinking and becoming obese.
More people dying younger saves the taxpayer money on pensions, healthcare and nursing care home provision.
Of course this is not a reason why we should allow people to smoke or drink themselves to death. Freedom to choose one's own individual health choices is why.
More people dying younger saves the taxpayer money on pensions, healthcare and nursing care home provision.
Of course this is not a reason why we should allow people to smoke or drink themselves to death. Freedom to choose one's own individual health choices is why.
I'd like to see figures for those claims, because pensioners get rinsed for eveything they have to pay for their care.
Regardless, I'd wager most people are happy for their taxes to go towards treatment of the elderly. Getting old is unavoidable. Smoking, drinking and obesity are completely avoidable and unnecessary burdens.
Original post by Rinsed
Actually, people with all these terrible habits die earlier so cost the taxpayer less in the long run.
Dubious claim. Smoking a packet of fags a day for your entire life is estimated to reduce your life expenctancy by maybe five years. There will be plenty of these people who live well into their eighties, so they'll be a burden two, three or four times over.
Original post by Rinsed
But the idea that tax contributions to the health system somehow gives politicians licence to dictate people's live would be idiotic even if the reasoning were not flawed.
But the idea that tax contributions to the health system somehow gives politicians licence to dictate people's live would be idiotic even if the reasoning were not flawed.
There is no flaw in the reasoning. 'Personal freedom' is not absolute. Considerations must be taken to restricting it when it begins negatively effecting others. (ie. rinsing the taxman).
It's not for you to decide whether someone's (or indeed everyone's) waistline is a problem or not. If they're content indulging themselves, knowing that it will have negative implications for their health, that is their choice and theirs alone.
Original post by pol pot noodles
Dubious claim. Smoking a packet of fags a day for your entire life is estimated to reduce your life expenctancy by maybe five years. There will be plenty of these people who live well into their eighties, so they'll be a burden two, three or four times over.
It's not dubious. It's been shown may times*.
There is no flaw in the reasoning. 'Personal freedom' is not absolute. Considerations must be taken to restricting it when it begins negatively effecting others. (ie. rinsing the taxman).
.
.
Well, that entirely depends how much you think my eating pies negatively affects everyone else.
I personally don't care either way.
*
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/9359212/Obese-and-smokers-less-of-a-burden-on-the-NHS-than-the-healthy-who-live-longer-report.html
http://ash.org.uk/files/documents/ASH_121.pdf
http://www.adamsmith.org/blog/health/fatties-and-smokers-save-the-nhs-money
Original post by Neshida
It's not ridiculous. Currently the NHS, spends a huge fraction of its budget treating lifestyle related diseases. 5 bn alone is spend on smoking related illnesses a year and 750 million on drugs for illness related to people making the wrong choices such as type 2 diabetes or heart disease. Your average citizen, for example, especially children, doesn't have enough understanding and information to allow them to make the correct decisions when consuming foods. And if you have young siblings you would know how hard it is, to keep them away from the cookie jar in favour of veggies. Thus, I'm saying it is these consumers: young, apathetic, misinformed that any government that cares for its citizens should want to protect.
Smokers already pay for their additional healthcare costs through high taxes on tobacco. I remember many years ago doing work experience in a hospital and a consultant was explaining the drain on resources that smokers cause. But he also added that smokers pay more into the NHS through taxes than they actually take out. He summed it up with 'if we banned smoking tomorrow the NHS would go bankrupt.'
Lifestyle choices however through obesity are different. The costs of treating obesity aren't claimed back anywhere else at the moment as there's no junk food taxes.
This is where private healthcare does have a benefit over the NHS. If your lifestyle choices increase your risk, then you pay a higher premium. This doesn't mean I'm advocating a private healthcare system, merely pointing out that you've lost one of the levers for influencing people to improve their health because it can always be seen by the individual as somebody else is footing the bill.
The UK in general does need to raise its level of health. How much tax payers money would be saved by getting people back to work who's illnesses are down to solvable problems such as obesity?
The issue comes down to the left wanting to dictate how to do it whereas the right believes in people taking a bit of responsibility for their own actions.
Original post by Falcatas
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2619655/Labours-nanny-state-plan-drinkers-smokers-unhealthy-eaters-sparks-revolt-party-Red-Ed-says-FORCE-fit.html
Labour obviously thinks we can't be trusted to look after ourselves so we need their helping hand to "empower" us.
Why can't the government just leave us alone to make our decisions?
Labour obviously thinks we can't be trusted to look after ourselves so we need their helping hand to "empower" us.
Why can't the government just leave us alone to make our decisions?
Because you're costing the rest of us money.
I think it's better than giving drug addicts heroine provided by the NHS.
Also to the poster above. The NHS is also very understaffed so smokers are wasting their time and causing other people to die. Did you see the thread yesterday a junior doctor made about how a patient died because no one was seeing him?
(edited 9 years ago)
Original post by ChickenMadness
Because you're costing the rest of us money.
Good grief, this thread is going in circles.
No they don't, they cost less because they die sooner.
Original post by ChickenMadness
Because you're costing the rest of us money.
1. So? You get out of your house, you might get hit by a car, break your ribs and cost rest of us money. You drive, you might crash into a tree at 60mph and cost us money on keeping you alive on life support. You might fall down the ladder, loose blood and cost us money on treating that head wound and blood transfusion. People make choices, some of them lead to injury, illness and cost NHS money however that does not degrade the people's right to make those choices.
2. Taking obesity as an example. People die much earlier due to obesity; in 2001 NAO estimated 30,000 excess deaths due to obesity in UK alone, many of which were premature with 9,0000 of them dying before state pension age and on average people died 9 years earlier. Which means state and rest of us save money on: a) pension, b) elderly care, c) healthcare etc.
Assuming 50% of NHS funding goes towards treating patients, that is £861 per person, per year. By dying 9 years early, an obese person saved NHS £7749. There are 14,606,130 obese people in UK (23.1% of population), so in total that is saving of £113.18 billion. NHS £4.2 billion per year treating overweight and obese related conditions.
TLDR: Obese people are saving us £108.98 billion just by dying earlier.
Original post by swanderfeild
1. So? You get out of your house, you might get hit by a car, break your ribs and cost rest of us money. You drive, you might crash into a tree at 60mph and cost us money on keeping you alive on life support. You might fall down the ladder, loose blood and cost us money on treating that head wound and blood transfusion. People make choices, some of them lead to injury, illness and cost NHS money however that does not degrade the people's right to make those choices.
2. Taking obesity as an example. People die much earlier due to obesity; in 2001 NAO estimated 30,000 excess deaths due to obesity in UK alone, many of which were premature with 9,0000 of them dying before state pension age and on average people died 9 years earlier. Which means state and rest of us save money on: a) pension, b) elderly care, c) healthcare etc.
Assuming 50% of NHS funding goes towards treating patients, that is £861 per person, per year. By dying 9 years early, an obese person saved NHS £7749. There are 14,606,130 obese people in UK (23.1% of population), so in total that is saving of £113.18 billion. NHS £4.2 billion per year treating overweight and obese related conditions.
TLDR: Obese people are saving us £108.98 billion just by dying earlier.
2. Taking obesity as an example. People die much earlier due to obesity; in 2001 NAO estimated 30,000 excess deaths due to obesity in UK alone, many of which were premature with 9,0000 of them dying before state pension age and on average people died 9 years earlier. Which means state and rest of us save money on: a) pension, b) elderly care, c) healthcare etc.
Assuming 50% of NHS funding goes towards treating patients, that is £861 per person, per year. By dying 9 years early, an obese person saved NHS £7749. There are 14,606,130 obese people in UK (23.1% of population), so in total that is saving of £113.18 billion. NHS £4.2 billion per year treating overweight and obese related conditions.
TLDR: Obese people are saving us £108.98 billion just by dying earlier.
They're also causing other patients to die by using up the NHS's time in understaffed hospitals. And 4 month wait times for appointments because some face stuffing fatties need to be seen first.
Also if I get hit by a car thats not intentional. Smokers and over eaters are making a conscious decision that puts them in hospitals.
Original post by Rinsed
Good grief, this thread is going in circles.
No they don't, they cost less because they die sooner.
No they don't, they cost less because they die sooner.
An interesting point. Increase life expectancy and then you have a whole host if health problems that you never used to have such as dementia.
Original post by ChickenMadness
They're also causing other patients to die by using up the NHS's time in understaffed hospitals. And 4 month wait times for appointments because some face stuffing fatties need to be seen first.
Perhaps NHS should use that £108.98 billion to hire extra staff then.
Original post by ChickenMadness
Also if I get hit by a car thats not intentional. Smokers and over eaters are making a conscious decision that puts them in hospitals.
I don tthink either smokers or over eaters want to have their heart explode; they just like to smoke and eat. Just like you dont want to get hit by a car and end up in ICU, just want to leave your house once in a while.
Original post by swanderfeild
Perhaps NHS should use that £108.98 billion to hire extra staff then.
I don tthink either smokers or over eaters want to have their heart explode; they just like to smoke and eat. Just like you dont want to get hit by a car and end up in ICU, just want to leave your house once in a while.
I don tthink either smokers or over eaters want to have their heart explode; they just like to smoke and eat. Just like you dont want to get hit by a car and end up in ICU, just want to leave your house once in a while.
but smokers / over eaters know about the consequences and will constantly have doctors telling them to stop smoking/lose weight but they'l ignore the advice anyway.
It's like shooting heroine/steroids/insert drug, then going to the NHS for treatment. It could have been prevented easily.
Original post by MASTER265
What right do those left sons of beatches have in saying what we can do and what we can't
I can't justify all of the new rules that would be brought in, but the ban on smoking in cars containing children sounds like a great idea. The government has a right to stop you infringing on the rights of others - that's why we have a justice system. Children have a right not to be subjected to second-hand smoke.
Has anyone considered that maybe Labour just want our next generation to be healthier?
There's a lot of talk about cost-savings in the NHS, which is all very true.
For me the more underlying issue is that parents are allowed to smoke around their children or feed them to the point of obesity. These are child cruelty. We need to protect the most vulnerable in our society and in this case it is the powerless children subjected to fat/sugar overdoses and second-hand cigarette smoke.
Labour aren't stopping parents buying and feed their children snacks, nor are they stopping people smoking. They are trying to limit the impact of irresponsible parenting on people who don't have a voice.
There's a lot of talk about cost-savings in the NHS, which is all very true.
For me the more underlying issue is that parents are allowed to smoke around their children or feed them to the point of obesity. These are child cruelty. We need to protect the most vulnerable in our society and in this case it is the powerless children subjected to fat/sugar overdoses and second-hand cigarette smoke.
Labour aren't stopping parents buying and feed their children snacks, nor are they stopping people smoking. They are trying to limit the impact of irresponsible parenting on people who don't have a voice.
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