Sunday, September 18, 2011

Socialised health and longevity - the nagging never ends

I care about what happens to people. Especially those personally involved with me. But also, those who I don't know, in a broader sense.

But I can't care more about them than they do themselves.

If they want to eat their way to an early grave then quite frankly, that's their prerogative. Don't give me all the burden- on- the- public- health- system pleading. Firstly, because over their lifetimes unhealthy people will ultimately consume fewer public funds and secondly, if you are serious about that argument, why have public health? Why not privatise and improve the incentives to be healthy?

No. Thought so. Can't do that. So let's stick with the current context.

There is no sense behind the onslaught of nannying that has suffocated targets for many decades now. Actually, didn't it begin with the welfare state? 'Now we have nationalised your body, we have the right to nationalise your behaviour'.

Matt McCarten - get over yourself . The rest of the world doen't need you to watch over them, stop them eating your idea of unhealthy food, or force them into sport and activity, or make them read food labels.

You have your beloved socialised health and security. Stop rubbing salt into to the wounds of those forced to fund a system they are fundamentally opposed to.

When it comes to people who foreshorten their lives through over-eating, over-drinking, smoking etc., what the taxpayer loses on the swings, they will regain on the roundabouts. The best that can be said for health and longevity as subsidised and supervised by the state.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

Matt Mc's main point it all leads up to is the change to allow sugar and high fat foods back into school cafes. Your post should really be about the level of protection accorded to minor citizens. For instance energy drinks high in caffeine are legal for under 18's to consume but should sale in schools be allowed.

MG said...

Yes, indeed Lindsay. If the gummint could sort all our problems it would most certainly have been done by now.

McCartens solution to most things is give people more stuff for free. Gym memberships? Can't believe he even wrote that down. We've given his constituency free food for decades - I bet the correlation between that and bad choices is completely lost on him.

Lindsay Mitchell said...

What McCarten "leads up to" is his prescription for solving the "obesity epidemic" regardless of age. And you are just another form of nanny telling me what "your post should really be about." It's my blog, not yours.

Good lord. I bought my 17 year-old son TWO cans of V the other day. A reward for giving up his time to help someone who he was not obliged to; making good decisions of his own volition. What don't you get about 'force' 'regulation' and 'free-will'?

Mark Hubbard said...

The food and health nazis are the storm troopers of the Orwellian State: and the gun they always use is taxation:

http://tiny.cc/sbflo

Mike Webber said...

Remember Martin Niemoller and Hitler's national socialists.

FF said...

The blind spot that intelligent libertarians have is that they appear to believe that others have the same level of intelligence and free will as they do.

This is wishful blank slatism which shares much with the left.

Anonymous said...

A young caregiver works in a rest home. This job is between jobs, she will not be at this rest home very long. The rest homes are full. A nurse is present twice a day. In the morning to hand out medication and in the evening to hand out medication. It's the caregivers who tend to the elderly. Uneducated, in between jobs and getting paid the lowest wage ever imagined.
Seriously, i would not want longevity.

Lindsay Mitchell said...

Of itself longevity it is not worth much is it Marlene.

FF, I don't assume. But intelligence, in as much as it can be measured, describes the famous bellcurve. Most fall in the middle somewhere.

Lindsay Mitchell said...

Sorry 'Merlene':-)

FF said...

The rest home was not as bleak as I expected for my 91 yr old mother. At 90, she found the love of her life there, and spent a year of hand-holding bliss in the sunroom. It was quite moving.

Anonymous said...

There are good rest homes and people working in them.
Your point is the economic reality of providing health care for people who do not make good choices for their health.
A woman who was billed $800 for an operation at a private hospital, rang her mother to complain about the cost? If she had of known it was going to cost $800 she would never have gone to the hospital? A few phone calls later the DHB picked up the tab?

Anonymous said...

Stopping welfare would "solve" the "obesity epidemic" in 90% of Kiwis overnight.

As part of that, ending the DHB's & subsidies to private small health businesses (GPs) removes the moral hazard in the first place.