Bad habits or healthcare?

brainfeeder
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The day commercial carcinogens are no longer covered by insurance companies in the US, is the day hell freezes over.

There is too much exploitation and profit to be made.
 
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I just heard that Calgary banned trans-fats in all restaurants. Discuss.
 
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Wouldn't that include every single piece of fried ... everything? As in, no more fries, no more bacon, no more tasty deliciousness?
 
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It seems Gordon Brown intends on giving unhealthy people a choice.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/smoking/Story/0,,2233872,00.html

Is this something that should be put in place in every country, perhaps?
it's pretty interesting. i had an experience where one a patient of mine had a stent placement within his carotid artery from an acute myocardial infarction related to his chronic smoking habits. hours later he was downstairs smoking on a cigarette. makes you kind of think about placing these kind of restrictions in place
 
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You're a doctor? o:

Well I agree, what's the point in treating people already killing themselves? They're just using money better spent on people who aren't killing themselves.
 
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7165990.stm

Anyway, I think, before we go crazy and start limiting people's right to eat whatever they want, we should probably start teaching will power. Or at least try to instill the notion in children that being fit is super cool. If people fail to control themselves, and are actively eating, smoking and drinking themselves to death, the government would probably step in and temporarily limit consumption of those products until people are adult enough to understand that moderation is key.
 
brainfeeder
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We can preach about willpower, but the general consensus isn't going to listen.

When individual profit is involved, the government might as well be a plague.
 
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That's why we should focus on the children. Most "adults" are too set in their ways and won't want to change, either because of ignorance or stubbornness. As it is now, our kids like 90 lbs at 4 months old, so we should probably fix that.
 
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Not sure what other countries are doing but smoking is becoming more and more limited in Australia. Before you could smoke anywhere but slowly they're introducing legislation to limit venues. Restaurants and Bars were hit in July '07, and I must say the change has been huge.

Working in security at the end of the night I'd see cigarette butts everywhere, not only that but the air inside the venue would be thick and smokey. Nowadays people need to either leave the venue to smoke or head to designated smoking areas (which must have an open roof) and while the these areas tend to get cigarette butts everywhere, the air inside is much cleaner.

In actual fact its stopped a lot of casual smokers and only the really desperate people make the effort to go out and smoke. One of the better laws they've come up with in this country.
 
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We got the same law this year. But now the small bars are complaining about loosing customers due to not having enough room to cover a seperate smoking area.
 
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****, first they stop us from smoking in pubs and clubs (which now smell like beer and stale sweat) now they're going to make it so we cant have health care :( not a good time to be a smoker... I think I'll have to quit soon then D:

I'm surprised they're doing this though, i mean apart from petrol, tobacco and alcohol are the most taxed things in this country... despite the 75% tax that's on tobacco going to the NHS they wont treat the smokers. bah :(
 
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i'll give the same response to that, dave, as i gave to jodie at work the other day when i was too busy to help her lift a not very heavy box, and she yelled at me because she was pregnant:

"**** off, that's you're own lifestyle choice".

if people choose to eat and never exercise until they become so obese that our hospitals can't cope with the waiting lists they create for heart surgerys, and some 15 year old girl who's never been healthy since birth, is at extreme risk of dying because of that list. then as far as i'm concerned, we should be helping the people who didn't have any choice in their health state.

when i go out and get drunk, and feel like **** the next morning, it's nobodys fault but my own. if i ever had kidney problems because of it, it's my own fault. people need to start realising that they can't just do whatever the **** they like and get away with it, in all forms of deed or society.

if you wanna smoke yourself to death, but still have surgery to live longer, get private healthcare, and stop causing other people discomfort.
 
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I'm not saying that at all, I fully accept the responsibilities involved with bad lifestyle choices, which is why I'm planning to quit smoking atm, but what I can't understand is how making tobacco the enemy is going to save money if it's one of the biggest incomes in terms of tax in the country... I agree with the raising the age to 18, but I never agreed with the smoking in pubs and bars ban... I mean the best thing there is about smoking is smoking with a pint in a pub with your mates, the rest of the time it just tastes bad and makes you cough :(

Like Bill Hicks said though, I would quit if I wasn't so scared I'd become one of you self righteous ****ers. :p
 
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because while tax might be one of the biggest incomes, it's also one of the biggest expenses.

do the math: a guy buys 20 a day, every day for a year, i'm guessing that's about £5 a pack nowadays? lets say £5 for the sake of argument.

£365*5= £1825 of which 17.5% tax = £319.375

lets say he's been smoking for ten years now... so he's paid the government £31937.5 in taxes.

to pay for one years salery, for a sergeon who deals specifically with vascular illness, is about £50k. so the guy smoking for 10 years, hasn't even paid that mans salery.

then the man needs sergery, all of a sudden the vascular sergeon, and a team of nurses, plus the equipment which was developed specifically to deal with smoking related ilnesses are all called in. so in that one room you have about £1,500,000 of medical resources.

all of a sudden it takes 15 people smoking 20 a day, for 10 years, to pay for that one sergery, which could have been avoided by them not smoking at all.
 
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aww c'mon! i've just got used to to standing under a bloody bus shelter while its pissing it down on a day-to-day basis instead of being in the warm enjoying my bevvy, banter, tv and a game of pool, and now they plan to cut off healthcare? if they want to cut on smokers, stop people smoking beforehand, not harass ignorant gits like me who wont listen to some fat git on the TV... you took our pubs..you may take our healthcare but you'll never take our freedom!!

shouldnt they be channeling all this into the 2008 anti-drink propaganda? smoking related deaths and expenses probably dosnt scratch the side of fee's incurred by the daily binge drinkathons across the globe. in fact i'll shut up there there, wouldnt want to incur the wrath of brown on my drinking habit as well.

just you wait until summer chaps who wanted us to stay out when smoking... when you want to step outside and enjoy a drink... i'll be waiting
 
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There's more than 17.5% tax on cigs Lee... duty tax accounts for over half of the price of cigs, you can buy 200 cigs for £5 duty free. It's £5.90 for 20 Marlboro I think, that's in a corner shop price varies of course.

I guess your sorta right though, price of surgery is ridiculous though.

I just wish smoking had a few less consequences... not more...

I hear ya Muff, well said.
 
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a few less consequences? your talking about smoking, it has an "ultimate" consequence too it. why bother having less?

while i think that smoking should be banned from public places just because of the fact that your forcing smoke down peoples esophagus's, i could care less if you smoke in your own little world. as long as no one else is effected. its wrong to force them too make a choice like that, but it would probably save enough money for the to HAVE a health insurance program.

dunno, im torn on the matter.
 

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