Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Abdominal abomination

The call for publicly-funded stomach stapling is just abominable. Not that it doesn't already go on to a degree but talking it up as an 'entitlement' is just a green light to get fat and then take the easy way out. And 2 National MPs have backed up the call. Obviously individual responsibility doesn't apply to what you choose to put away on a daily basis. But then it doesn't apply to much else with this particular version of a National government.

Yesterday I blogged about just how tight the health budget is. There are many people who are going to be living in pain because they have degenerative unavoidable conditions. MacDoctor told us last week that he is having a devil of a time getting patients in to see a hospital specialist.

But that is the economic ethics of publicly funded health. If you are old you are a burden. If you are young you are an investment. No matter if you failed to control the behaviour that caused the need for a $28,000 operation.

Turia says;

"We already pay billions of dollars for the care of diabetics ... All of that is huge money that the state has to pay."

Here's a radical idea. Avoid the frigging diabetes in the first place or pay for the op yourself.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Another step towards a complete abdication of personal responsibilities.

Rubbish promoted by rubbish politicians.

brian_smaller said...

Perhaps instead of stomach stapling operations, the government supply a padlock to lock up fat people's fridges.

Shem Banbury said...

Couldn't believe it myself. Better option is to get everyone overweight to run a marathon.

Anonymous said...

I am still at a loss to understand why business interests use skinny people to advertise products that make people fat?

Dirk

Anonymous said...

Best solution is to get the state out of covering health. Permanently. Then all of these problems go away.

In the interim - the more rationing the better - the less of my money they waste on sick bludgers

(and yes, everyone on the public health is by definition a bludger.

MacDoctor said...

Diabetic patients would be better served by eating less and exercising more. Stomach stapling is far, far riskier and will, of course, be seriously rationed.

Imagine having obese diabetics telling you that they don't see any necessity to exercise or eat properly because "one day they will get their stomach stapling".

Political stupidity clearly knows no bounds.

Anonymous said...

Its all a bit simplistic to label all fat people lazy or self indulgent. Not all diabetics suffer from an over eating/no exercise lifestyle.

I was looking at adding a new truck to our fleet before Xmas and checked one out in Upper Hutt. It belonged to an individual who needed a stomach staple and because he didnt qualify for a state funded operation,( not a MP) was selling his pride and joy to finance the op. Cant ask more of someone than that.


Dirk.