[CaptainPanic]

Greg Boyles, on 20 December 2011 - 02:52 PM, said:

If health care is run by private business then you can do as you please with your life because it is entirely user pays. If your lifestyle is detrimental to your health then you will no doubt pay accordingly for the treatment you end up receiving.

But if you run a public health care system with a flat medicare levi then it is entirely unsustainable if large numbers of people destroy their health through smoking, alcohol and over eating etc.

Therefore you have no choice but to introduce some of the feature of private health care funding if you are not to bankrupt the state in the long term. We want to keep our public health care but we do not want it to end up sending us down the same path as Greece.

Fine. But what gives you the right to make the choices for those selection criteria of what is unhealthy, and what is not?

If it is private, then it's just another product on the market. And I can choose not to buy. Fine, I don't care.

If it is public, and I am in that system no matter what, then I'd like to have a say in how it works... and I strongly disagree with your selection criteria of only alcohol, tobacco and bad food. Not while I see people getting skin cancer on the beaches every summer.

I've given plenty of examples of unhealthy lifestyles which are somehow excluded, and in a mandatory public system, that is just discrimination. And in addition, I have shown you an article where it is shown that those unhealthy people do not cost us much. And in addition, they already pay higher tax on those products. So, they get hit 3 times by your proposal... They pay more tax on alcohol/tobacco, they pay higher healthcare, and they die too quickly to enjoy much of that healthcare.

It's extremely unfair... and cannot be tolerated in a public system.

This post has been edited by CaptainPanic: 20 December 2011 - 03:02 PM

[Greg Boyles]

CaptainPanic, on 20 December 2011 - 02:59 PM, said:

Fine. But what gives you the right to make the choices for those selection criteria of what is unhealthy, and what is not?

If it is private, then it's just another product on the market. And I can choose not to buy. Fine, I don't care.

If it is public, and I am in that system no matter what, then I'd like to have a say in how it works... and I strongly disagree with your selection criteria of only alcohol, tobacco and bad food. Not while I see people getting skin cancer on the beaches every summer.

If skin cancer is proven to be a major drain on the public health system then yes, but I doubt that it is in the same league as smoking etc. Most skin cancer is easily and inexpensively treated when caught early.

CaptainPanic, on 20 December 2011 - 02:59 PM, said:

I've given plenty of examples of unhealthy lifestyles which are somehow excluded, and in a mandatory public system, that is just discrimination. And in addition, I have shown you an article where it is shown that those unhealthy people do not cost us much. And in addition, they already pay higher tax on those products. So, they get hit 3 times by your proposal... They pay more tax on alcohol/tobacco, they pay higher healthcare, and they die too quickly to enjoy much of that healthcare.

It's extremely unfair... and cannot be tolerated in a public system.

All you have really shown me is an article that 'proves' the current crop of smokers etc are a drain on public health system when they are treated for their smoking related chronic illnesses and kept alive for longer rather than being denied treatment and allowed to die.

Please remember the paper I posted in reply that details how high blood pressure and inactivity are risk factors for Alzheimers, and my valid point that smoking and obesity are contributing factors to inactivity and high blood pressure.

So reduction of smoking, heavy drinking and obesity may increase health costs in the short to medium term.

But your article does not provide evidence that health costs will not fall signficantly in the long term as current smokers and obese die off AND are not replaced from subsequent generations.

This post has been edited by Greg Boyles: 21 December 2011 - 02:01 AM

[John Cuthber]

"All you have really shown me is an article that 'proves' the current crop of smokers etc are a drain on public health system when they are treated for their smoking related chronic illnesses and kept alive for longer rather than being denied treatment and allowed sentenced to die."

[Greg Boyles]

John Cuthber, on 21 December 2011 - 12:05 PM, said:

"All you have really shown me is an article that 'proves' the current crop of smokers etc are a drain on public health system when they are treated for their smoking related chronic illnesses and kept alive for longer rather than being denied treatment and allowed sentenced to die."

They choose to sentence themselves to slow and unpleasant death.

I have little sympathy for them, including my inlaws......although will I never the less miss my father in law when he passes in the not to distant future.

I am tired of hearing the hordes clamouring for their individual 'rights' when they have no interest in fulfilling their wider responsibilities.

We are seeing similar sort of crap from Murray-Darling irrigators at present as the federal government clamps down on water allocations that were grossly over allocated in previous decades.

Screw down stream water users, including the city of Adelaide that is relient on the Murray for their drinking water, as long as their cash flow in not effected. Some one else can make the sacrifices as long as it is not me x 1000s all the way along the basin.

All petulant and irresponsible teenagers who need to be put back in their place.

The federal government needs to start playing hard ball with them and smokers etc alike. I guess they pretty much are on both counts except they are not telling them to shut their holes as I would.

[Sorcerer]

I am not going to read this becaue I'm drunk and I enjoy it.

Ignorance is bliss, yadyyada, I don't care when I die as long as I've lived.

To live in fear is to live wrong.

[John Cuthber]

"I have little sympathy for them"
Then it's probably just as well that you won't be choosing their fate.

[Greg Boyles]

John Cuthber, on 21 December 2011 - 12:58 PM, said:

"I have little sympathy for them"
Then it's probably just as well that you won't be choosing their fate.

But my philosophy is already embedded in public health system, at least for smoking.

My father in law has been told that they wont give him an surgery to deal with his blocked coronory arteries unless he gives up the fags and stays off them.

They wont bet their sacrce resources on a lost cause and I don't blame them even though it is my father in law.

Sorcerer, on 21 December 2011 - 12:50 PM, said:

I am not going to read this becaue I'm drunk and I enjoy it.

Ignorance is bliss, yadyyada, I don't care when I die as long as I've lived.

To live in fear is to live wrong.

Living in fear has nothing to do with this.
It is about living responsibly.
With rights come responsibilities.

[pantheory]

Quote

The debate/argument with John Cuthber in the previous thread is piqued my curiosity about this subject and I have been continuing to dig around.
A search in google scholar has revealed these two items, one published in 2004 and the other in 2006. Not the gradual change in position on alcohol consumption.

http://www.sciencedi...376871685900018

This is entirely inline with John Cuthber's and other's position in here.

I don't think there is that much controversy involved. Most researchers would agree that alcohol can have beneficial side effects for most people. The keywords I think are "moderate consumption." Most researchers would define moderate consumption of alcohol to be no more than 3 normal sized drinks per day for men. And women because they are normally smaller, no more than 2 drinks per day. Beyond this amount many researchers believe possible negative effects of drinking could outweigh any positive benefits. Any arguments I think would concern the quantity of alcohol advisable rather than possible beneficial side effects.
//

This post has been edited by pantheory: 24 March 2012 - 08:40 PM