[Bobboau]

if you consiter the right to live healthy a basic human right live in Europe, if you consiter the right to live whatever lifestyle you chose even if it has negitive consequeses on your health live in America.

America, feel free to light one up.

[aldo_14]

if you consiter the right to live healthy a basic human right live in Europe, if you consiter the right to live whatever lifestyle you chose even if it has negitive consequeses on your health live in America.

That's a very odd - if not downright bizarre - statement to make.  Care to back it up?

[Mefustae]

if you consiter the right to live healthy a basic human right live in Europe, if you consiter the right to live whatever lifestyle you chose even if it has negitive consequeses on your health live in America.

That's a very odd - if not downright bizarre - statement to make.  Care to back it up?

Methinks he was being sardonic.

[Flipside]

Thing is ciggarette tax makes the Government something like 9 Billion pound a year, and, yes, it was orginally designated to go to the NHS, but when the Government discovered what a Gold Mine they were sitting on, it got rediverted, much in the same way as they are now dipping into the National Pension, which explains why they go so lightly on companies caught dipping their fingers into the staff pension funds, or if Road Tax was really used to maintain the Roads, we'd have the best roads in Europe.

On subject though, I'm far more inclined to think it is through bad management and poor allocation of funds that the NHS fails in particular.

[Bobboau]

if the government is paying for your health care then the choices in lifestyle wich effect your health become the governments problem not just your own, and they get the right to make choices on what is healthy for you and what is not. you give up power in your personal life becuase your personal life is now not just your personal life but an aspect of you life that directly effects the government and everyone in a very solid($) sort of way. the consequences of your personal choices are now the responsibility of the state to take care of, and that means you now have given the state a valid reason to impose whatever it deems healthy upon you. cigarettes (and the bans there of) are just the easiest, most visable example of what I'm talking about.
now if you think this is fine, if you don't think anything you ever want to do will be terrably unhealthy then fine, but if someone doesn't want to take that risk, then I don't see why allowing them to live in a country that doesn't have such a system and trying to keep it that way, would be any problem.

my health is my problem I want to keep it that way.

[Flipside]

I don't think we see it that way, just because it's our money we are giving to the government, doesn't automatically make it the Government's money, though they may like to see it that way.

Problem is, it's really hard to get a synopsis of what the government is spending its money on, you get individual departments making quotes at points in the year, but you really have to keep your ear to the ground to actually get the details.

For my part, I'm not against the idea of, say, banning smoking in eating establishments, if for social reasons if not health ones, oddly enough, the biggest cause of heart attacks in the UK isn't smoking related, but stress-related from over-work and a more and more demanding market. Yes, smoking conditions or unhealthy food may exaggerate the condition, but the biggest killer in the UK is Stress.

But as a great man once said, there's lies, damn lies and statistics.

[Turey]

if the government is paying for your health care then the choices in lifestyle wich effect your health become the governments problem not just your own, and they get the right to make choices on what is healthy for you and what is not. you give up power in your personal life becuase your personal life is now not just your personal life but an aspect of you life that directly effects the government and everyone in a very solid($) sort of way. the consequences of your personal choices are now the responsibility of the state to take care of, and that means you now have given the state a valid reason to impose whatever it deems healthy upon you. cigarettes (and the bans there of) are just the easiest, most visable example of what I'm talking about.
now if you think this is fine, if you don't think anything you ever want to do will be terrably unhealthy then fine, but if someone doesn't want to take that risk, then I don't see why allowing them to live in a country that doesn't have such a system and trying to keep it that way, would be any problem.

my health is my problem I want to keep it that way.

Thank you.

For the rest of you: what will you do when the government can't give you the quality of service in health care that you paid taxes for, because there's a whole bunch of people who don't pay the health care taxes but take up your hospitals?

Income tax is progressive. The more you make, the higher the percent you have to pay.

If there is a large group of people paying a pittance for health care, but claiming $3,600 EVERY FEW HOURS on medicine (from the article above), the system doesn't work.

Government and private health care face the same decision when the numbers don't add up: Raise costs or cut services.

[Flipside]

The problem isn't really the people who claim $3600 every few hours though, put the few people who have those kinds of needs next to people who head off the to Doctor the moment they get a headache or a cold, or who are talking to a specialist because they have 'reflex commitment rejection syndrome' (can't hold down a girlfriend and goes Emo) or some other such crap, and you'll soon see where the money goes.

Really, the problem isn't the people who need the medical system, it's teaching people to know when they need the Medical system. Personally, I'm thinking of starting a phsychology centre that involves one room and a baseball bat with the legend 'Reality' embossed onto it

[Bobboau]

I think my point if it hasn't been made yet can be illistrated thusly

A man who has chewed tobaco every day of his life sece he was 19 gets cancer, he knew that it was probly going to happen the whole time, but he did it anyway, there is an opperation that will probably save his life but it costs $400,000. is it fair that he should die because he can't afford that? is it fair that everyone else should have to pay for his irrisposibility?

there are two schools of thought on this issue, and I happen to be in the yes,no one (as opposed to no,yes)

[Flipside]

Thing is, the medical risks and addictiveness of tobacco has been known for a long long time, if the government were so determined to reduce the costs to the Healthcare system, why is it still legal when stuff which is less physically addictive is not?

If the government wants to take responsibility for things like Tobacco related diseases then it has to take into account its responsibility to itself, and yet the UK will never ban Tobacco outright.

[Mars]

Not to mention half of the addictiveness of cigarettes comes from drugs other than nicotine... they put all sorts of **** in those things.

[Bobboau]

which is just one reason why anyone who smokes is a dumb****, but you have an inlienable right to be a dumb**** if you so desire

[aldo_14]

if the government is paying for your health care then the choices in lifestyle wich effect your health become the governments problem not just your own, and they get the right to make choices on what is healthy for you and what is not. you give up power in your personal life becuase your personal life is now not just your personal life but an aspect of you life that directly effects the government and everyone in a very solid($) sort of way. the consequences of your personal choices are now the responsibility of the state to take care of, and that means you now have given the state a valid reason to impose whatever it deems healthy upon you. cigarettes (and the bans there of) are just the easiest, most visable example of what I'm talking about.
now if you think this is fine, if you don't think anything you ever want to do will be terrably unhealthy then fine, but if someone doesn't want to take that risk, then I don't see why allowing them to live in a country that doesn't have such a system and trying to keep it that way, would be any problem.

my health is my problem I want to keep it that way.

I'm not sure what your point is; there's no more abdication of freedom in state funded healthcare than there is for state funded policing or fire services.  Certainly the NHS has never imposed 'health lifestyles' upon people (encouraged, yes, but not imposed nor claimed the right to), and I'm pretty sure the insurance companies place more imposition than the nation ever could get away with because they have the discretion to discriminate.  So really, it's a private system that hurts people for smoking, et al - a public system simply cannot bias itself against people in the way that a 'chosen' private system can.

[Bobboau]

to be honest when I look at England I see a rather repressive nanny state, but that's just my opinion. I like access to sex, drugs, guns, and rock and roll, even if I don't partake of all of them, I like to know the option is available (which it isn't totally to my chagrin) even at a cost to my safety.

[Davros]

so in the u.s if you dont have health insurance and you get sick what happens ?

[aldo_14]

to be honest when I look at England I see a rather repressive nanny state, but that's just my opinion. I like access to sex, drugs, guns, and rock and roll, even if I don't partake of all of them, I like to know the option is available (which it isn't totally to my chagrin) even at a cost to my safety.

Um, we're (the United Kingdom, which is not England and I'd really expect better of you than commenting on a country you don't even know the name of...) more liberal when it comes to sex, produce some of the best rock & roll (sort of) music in the world, and drugs are just as illegal and even more harshly sentenced in the US IIRC; the only thing we have 'tighter' than the US is gun control, because some evil bastard shot up a primary school (and we've had none of those since then....)

so in the u.s if you dont have health insurance and you get sick what happens ?

I believe you hope for charity, or pay it out your own pocket (potentially tens of thousands of dollars).

[Ghostavo]

Although it's not really what's being discussed, who pays for caught criminals' medical bills? Always wondered about that myself.

[Mars]

to be honest when I look at England I see a rather repressive nanny state, but that's just my opinion. I like access to sex, drugs, guns, and rock and roll, even if I don't partake of all of them, I like to know the option is available (which it isn't totally to my chagrin) even at a cost to my safety.

Um, we're (the United Kingdom, which is not England and I'd really expect better of you than commenting on a country you don't even know the name of...) more liberal when it comes to sex, produce some of the best rock & roll (sort of) music in the world, and drugs are just as illegal and even more harshly sentenced in the US IIRC; the only thing we have 'tighter' than the US is gun control, because some evil bastard shot up a primary school (and we've had none of those since then....)

Honestly I've seen the same thing... although the US is quietly just about as repressive, UK it seems quite in your face... what with those... what was it? "friendly eyes" watching over y'all. 

so in the u.s if you dont have health insurance and you get sick what happens ?

I believe you hope for charity, or pay it out your own pocket (potentially tens of thousands of dollars).

Actually you die... here in the US we support freedom of evolution  :

[achtung]

There are many charity supported hospitals in the U.S., some providing better healthcare then do normal hospitals.

[Davros]

is it true (seen it on a tv show so probably not)
but if your rushed into hosptial after a car accident
and you have no insurance + no means to pay
they dont treat you ?????