Obese people and smokers 'banned from routine surgery' as NHS attempts to cut spending costs - Polidicks

[QUOTE=carcarcargo;50995853]The link you posted isn't clear cut, I've seen other studies suggesting the opposite. Particularly when you consider people who live longer pay more taxes overall, whereas smokers tend to cost a lot more in a shorter period of time.[/QUOTE] Care to post them?

[QUOTE=Killer900;50995646]Cash-strapped hospitals? But I thought that 350 million pounds were going to go to the NHS for the UK leaving the EU.[/QUOTE] Being spent on lawyers to help negotiate Brexit

[QUOTE=Scot;50995870]The difference is that would be classed as an emergency.[/QUOTE] Someone facing terminal illness is also an emergency. If you're going to deny care you can't be a hypocrite about it. You can't have double standards. The guy who's ill from his own deeds is just as responsible as the person injured by their own deeds but only one is punished.

[QUOTE=sgman91;50995878]Care to post them?[/QUOTE] [URL]http://www.euro.who.int/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/283695/Promoting-Health-Preventing-Disease-Economic-Case.pdf[/URL] Doesn't give direct costs but points out that there's more to the situation than just the direct costs themselves and how it can hurt the economy in other ways. It's not as clear cut as the article you posted states. Hell it even states in the study you posted "The study, paid for by the Dutch Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sports, did not take into account other potential costs of obesity and smoking, such as lost economic productivity or social costs."

[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;50995893]Someone facing terminal illness is also an emergency. If you're going to deny care you can't be a hypocrite about it. You can't have double standards. The guy who's ill from his own deeds is just as responsible as the person injured by their own deeds but only one is punished.[/QUOTE] Being over 30 BMI isn't a terminal illness I'm afraid.

[QUOTE=Scot;50995931]Being over 30 BMI isn't a terminal illness I'm afraid.[/QUOTE] nice just cherry pick and ignore to make your argument, such a well reasoned argument. [editline]3rd September 2016[/editline] because unless you can point to where I said, "A terminal illness is defined as being obese" then, you know, stop putting fucking words in my mouth.

Situations like this are why you can't have a socialized health care system, the individual doctors might care about the patients but the people at the very top really don't give a shit. Deep down they succumb to the same greed as anyone in a for-profit business, except this time the customers have no influence on how much they get paid. No owner of a for-profit company in their right mind would turn away paying customers.

[QUOTE=halofreak472;50996040]Situations like this are why you can't have a socialized health care system, the individual doctors might care about the patients but the people at the very top really don't give a shit. Deep down they succumb to the same greed as anyone in a for-profit business, except this time the customers have no influence on how much they get paid. No owner of a for-profit company in their right mind would turn away paying customers.[/QUOTE] Yeah instead you have to pay for cripplingly expensive insurance which if they decide not to pay for your surgery leads to life destroying debt. A much better system clearly.

[QUOTE=halofreak472;50996040]Situations like this are why you can't have a socialized health care system, the individual doctors might care about the patients but the people at the very top really don't give a shit. Deep down they succumb to the same greed as anyone in a for-profit business, except this time the customers have no influence on how much they get paid. No owner of a for-profit company in their right mind would turn away paying customers.[/QUOTE] Damn, he's a genius! No way could this be a prime example of what austerity does to government services, it's a prime example of why socialized medicine just doesn't work! Better switch to a privatized system ASAP so that healthcare costs can skyrocket and the unemployed can die on the streets.

[QUOTE=halofreak472;50996040]Situations like this are why you can't have a socialized health care system, the individual doctors might care about the patients but the people at the very top really don't give a shit. Deep down they succumb to the same greed as anyone in a for-profit business, except this time the customers have no influence on how much they get paid. No owner of a for-profit company in their right mind would turn away paying customers.[/QUOTE] The problem is neither socialization or privatization, the problem is greed

[QUOTE=carcarcargo;50996133]Yeah instead you have to pay for cripplingly expensive insurance which if they decide not to pay for your surgery leads to life destroying debt. A much better system clearly.[/QUOTE] [QUOTE=elfbarf;50996147]Damn, he's a genius! No way could this be a prime example of what austerity does to government services, it's a prime example of why socialized medicine just doesn't work! Better switch to a privatized system ASAP so that healthcare costs can skyrocket and the unemployed can die on the streets.[/QUOTE] Assuming you're talking about the US system - the costs of health insurance and health care have steadily increased each time the government stepped in and tried to fix things by adding regulations. They've basically set up a for-profit oligopoly because it's been made damn near impossible to compete with anyone else. The government aid programs are one of the things that make it cost so much in the first place. If someone can't afford health care, they won't purchase it and you're out a customer. As soon as a third party steps in and guarantees that they can somehow pay it, even if it ruins everything for them, then you can now increase prices as much as you want, because they will always find a way to pay it. [QUOTE=SebiWarrior;50996156]The problem is neither socialization or privatization, the problem is greed[/QUOTE] There is nothing you can do about greed, all you can do is try to influence the outcomes of it. The problem with socialism is that you have no reason to give a shit about your customers, you're more concerned with some higher up organization giving you money. If you want to cut costs, you can fuck over your customers with little side effects on your income. If you're a private company, you depend on your customers for your money, so there's much more reason to actually make your place a half decent company to do business with. The only time this doesn't happen is in the case of monopolies, which usually only come about when competition is made flat out illegal.

[QUOTE=halofreak472;50996214]Assuming you're talking about the US system - the costs of health insurance and health care have steadily increased each time the government stepped in and tried to fix things by adding regulations. They've basically set up a for-profit oligopoly because it's been made damn near impossible to compete with anyone else. The government aid programs are one of the things that make it cost so much in the first place. If someone can't afford health care, they won't purchase it and you're out a customer. As soon as a third party steps in and guarantees that they can somehow pay it, even if it ruins everything for them, then you can now increase prices as much as you want, because they will always find a way to pay it. [/QUOTE] That's only because your government does it in such a hamfisted way. Not really comparable to actual government run healthcare at all. This doesn't really have anything to do with greed so much as it has to do with the government deliberately underfunding it to force privatisation. It is, at least when it's not being obliterated by the tories, a very good system and I'd soon have the NHS than ever have to deal with the garbage US system that would probably bankrupt me before actually helping me. I mean most of the problems you've mentioned are all private sector problems, in that the private sector will always go towards overcharging and shying away from preventive medicine. The prices for healthcare under a private system will always be stupidly expensive because you don't actually have a choice in whether you use it or not, you can chose between either having crippling health problems or dying, or paying the extortionate prices the private sector demands. Proper competition does not exist within the healthcare system as a result of this, you can only have competition when there is an actual choice on whether to buy it or not. For profit healthcare is almost always abusive to customers as a result since they hold all the cards, you don't have any real choice. The NHS is not a for profit system and therefore doesn't suffer these problems, the only real problems it has are ideological underfunding from free market advocates.

[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;50995893]Someone facing terminal illness is also an emergency.[/QUOTE] No it isn't. Have you seen a radiation therapist or chemotherapist in the ER? Because I haven't. Same reason why a gym isn't labeled "Emergency Fat Reduction Center" since eating like a moron and getting type 2 diabetes is not an immediate emergency. When a smoker with lung cancer or a human blimp inevitably go into cardiac arrest then it's an emergency.

[QUOTE=carcarcargo;50996274]That's only because your government does it in such a hamfisted way. Not really comparable to actual government run healthcare at all. This doesn't really have anything to do with greed so much as it has to do with the government deliberately underfunding it to force privatisation. It is, at least when it's not being obliterated by the tories, a very good system and I'd soon have the NHS than ever have to deal with the garbage US system that would probably bankrupt me before actually helping me. I mean most of the problems you've mentioned are all private sector problems, in that the private sector will always go towards overcharging and shying away from preventive medicine. The prices for healthcare under a private system will always be stupidly expensive because you don't actually have a choice in whether you use it or not, you can chose between either having crippling health problems or dying, or paying the extortionate prices the private sector demands. Proper competition does not exist within the healthcare system as a result of this, you can only have competition when there is an actual choice on whether to buy it or not. For profit healthcare is almost always abusive to customers as a result since they hold all the cards, you don't have any real choice. The NHS is not a for profit system and therefore doesn't suffer these problems, the only real problems it has are ideological underfunding from free market advocates.[/QUOTE] Customers may have to pay for the health care or die, but they at least have a choice for who they want to pay. The problem is that they aren't given that choice. Just look at the EpiPen - numerous companies have sprung up to try to compete with them, but the FDA always came up with some reason to shoot them down. It's not a hard or expensive drug to manufacture, there have been no documented cases of death from misuse of it, but the FDA holds it to absurdly high standards. So when there is literally one company allowed to manufacture the drug, of course it's going to be cripplingly expensive. The problem with the funding issue is that there surely must be some other way to cut costs within the NHS if they can't get enough funding. Why is it that the people their company is literally designed to serve are the ones that get screwed over? The customers have very little influence over the operation of the business since there is no money at stake. And another problem - they're at the mercy of whoever is in charge of funding them, who as you can see, cares more about their own politics than the care of the customers. You have a class of people who just flat out can't get surgery now, and there's nobody to turn to since the NHS has a monopoly.

It's a shame the NHS is getting torn to shreds.

I mean, maybe you should have to pay a little more if you do these things, but I don't think you should be disregarded almost completely.

[QUOTE=halofreak472;50996362]Customers may have to pay for the health care or die, but they at least have a choice for who they want to pay. The problem is that they aren't given that choice. Just look at the EpiPen - numerous companies have sprung up to try to compete with them, but the FDA always came up with some reason to shoot them down. It's not a hard or expensive drug to manufacture, there have been no documented cases of death from misuse of it, but the FDA holds it to absurdly high standards. So when there is literally one company allowed to manufacture the drug, of course it's going to be cripplingly expensive. The problem with the funding issue is that there surely must be some other way to cut costs within the NHS if they can't get enough funding. Why is it that the people their company is literally designed to serve are the ones that get screwed over? The customers have very little influence over the operation of the business since there is no money at stake. And another problem - they're at the mercy of whoever is in charge of funding them, who as you can see, cares more about their own politics than the care of the customers. You have a class of people who just flat out can't get surgery now, and there's nobody to turn to since the NHS has a monopoly.[/QUOTE] They can't flat out not get surgery, they just have to stop certain behaviors to get it, and even then it's only minor surgery, emergency and essential surgery is still there. It's still massively preferable to the US system where the healthcare providers bankrupt their customers for profit, you might have choice in the US but it's all still far outside the majority of peoples ability to pay due to the private sector wanting to make profits on top of it all. It's far more profitable to aim for a smaller number of high paying customers and a larger number of low paying customers which is why the competition bringing fees down isn't really true, you can only reduce fees so far before it starts being unprofitable to do so. That's something we don't have in the UK and I'd rather it stayed that way. As for drugs, the reason the FDA does that is because if they don't drug companies will simply stop investing if they can't have a monopoly on a certain type of drug that they've invested money into researching as they'd be quickly out done by other companies who didn't have to bear the cost of the research and therefore can sell it significantly cheaper than you, so you'd essentially just bring drug research to a halt as nobody would be willing to invest. This already happens with other types of drug research that is deemed difficult to patent. Drug research would be far far better done under not for profit circumstances as a result.

[QUOTE=carcarcargo;50996406]It's still massively preferable to the US system where the healthcare providers bankrupt their customers for profit, you might have choice in the US but [B]it's all still far outside the majority of peoples ability to pay[/B] due to the private sector wanting to make profits on top of it all.[/QUOTE] The US system has it's issues, but this is just full on BS. The majority of people in the country had insurance and were happy with their insurance before Obamacare was passed, and that was during bad economic times.

[QUOTE=sgman91;50996485]The US system has it's issues, but this is just full on BS. The majority of people in the country had insurance and were happy with their insurance before Obamacare was passed, and that was during bad economic times.[/QUOTE] Happy with their insurance in comparison to what? Like just being "happy" with it doesn't mean it's good and doesn't mean that the UK adopting a similar system wouldn't drastically reduce peoples quality of life here. I know I couldn't afford the equivalent of $15,000 per year for insurance without having my quality of life dramatically impacted, don't know many people who could really.

[QUOTE=sgman91;50996485]The US system has it's issues, but this is just full on BS. The majority of people in the country had insurance and were happy with their insurance before Obamacare was passed, and that was during bad economic times.[/QUOTE] Where are your sources. I mean, outside of your rich, upper-class gated neighborhood

[QUOTE=Zillamaster55;50996543]Where are your sources. I mean, outside of your rich, upper-class gated neighborhood[/QUOTE] [URL]http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2010/mar/10/george-will/will-says-95-percent-people-health-insurance-are-s/[/URL] I appreciate the personal attack, though. I'll remember to tell that to all my neighbors who send their kids to a high school that receives free lunches for every single student because the poverty levels are so high in the area. You know what, maybe I'll tell that to the idiot who drives his loud motorcycle down my street every few weeks. He seems to keep forgetting about the gate that doesn't exist. One more! I'll let my neighbor who can barely speak English and drives a delivery truck (he's a great guy) how rich he really is because some guy on the internet said so! If I were a person who allowed people to offend me on the internet, that statement of yours may have done it. You don't know me or my life, please don't pretend that you do.

Well that's most of Facepunch then :v: Damn, the NHS have let their standards slip..

[QUOTE=loopoo;50995639]I dunno why everyone is against this. The main demographic who put a lot of strain on the NHS are obese people and smokers. Why should everyone else suffer dealing with a struggling NHS because of people who make their own personal choices? I think it's bullshit an obese person can go in and get a gastric band or waste loads of tax-payers money getting surgery for shit like heart bypasses, or smokers going in to get operations to ease problems they've caused themselves (I'm a smoker myself and I'd feel bad using the NHS services for a problem I knew I damn well caused myself). Let the NHS devote their time and effort helping people who really need it and are suffering through no fault of their own.[/QUOTE] Trim the fat, purge the weak. Come on, say what you really think, stop sugarcoating it! Why should the majority suffer because of a few weak links? The economy would be a lot better off if we stopped wasting effort on the homeless, too

[QUOTE=sgman91;50996574][URL]http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2010/mar/10/george-will/will-says-95-percent-people-health-insurance-are-s/[/URL] I appreciate the personal attack, though. I'll remember to tell that to all my neighbors who send their kids to a high school that receives free lunches for every single student because the poverty levels are so high in the area. You know what, maybe I'll tell that to the idiot who drives his loud motorcycle down my street every few weeks. He seems to keep forgetting about the gate that doesn't exist. One more! I'll let my neighbor who can barely speak English and drives a delivery truck (he's a great guy) how rich he really is because some guy on the internet said so! If I were a person who allowed people to offend me on the internet, that statement of yours may have done it. You don't know me or my life, please don't pretend that you do.[/QUOTE] If you don't care then you shouldn't write a big spiel, it makes it look like you took it personally. I know for a fact that if we adopted a US system, then I would be shit out of luck because no one in my family makes any money maybe besides my sister but she's still in her overdraft most of the time. If we adopted a US system, guaranteed our mortality rates would go up and our already low life expectancy would drop. What's going on right now makes me really worried for my parents, who are both disabled, they're already struggling with benefit cuts, the last thing we need is for my dad to have to pay up for his prescription, that would bankrupt us in a week. [editline]4th September 2016[/editline] [QUOTE=loopoo;50995639]I dunno why everyone is against this. The main demographic who put a lot of strain on the NHS are obese people and smokers. Why should everyone else suffer dealing with a struggling NHS because of people who make their own personal choices? I think it's bullshit an obese person can go in and get a gastric band or waste loads of tax-payers money getting surgery for shit like heart bypasses, or smokers going in to get operations to ease problems they've caused themselves (I'm a smoker myself and I'd feel bad using the NHS services for a problem I knew I damn well caused myself). Let the NHS devote their time and effort helping people who really need it and are suffering through no fault of their own.[/QUOTE] Yeah so by that logic we should just leave car crash victims too, because you know, being in a car, they brought on the risk themselves, or that joiner over there who fell off the scaffolding, he looked at the risk assessment so he knew what he was getting into.

[QUOTE=Wickerman123;50997012]If you don't care then you shouldn't write a big spiel, it makes it look like you took it personally.[/QUOTE] Here's an even better idea: How about kids on the internet don't try to insinuate that anyone who disagrees with them is spoiled and lazy? Maybe that's a better response than attacking somebody for defending themselves against childish personal attacks.

[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;50995893]Someone facing terminal illness is also an emergency. If you're going to deny care you can't be a hypocrite about it. You can't have double standards. The guy who's ill from his own deeds is just as responsible as the person injured by their own deeds but only one is punished.[/QUOTE] I don't think you understand the concept of emergency care.

Yeah I guess in terms of medical emergency not as much but they're still going to typically receive care as if they were important

[QUOTE=ilikecorn;50997247]Somewhat. Treating terminal illness is more "lets make sure your comfortable" vs "HOLY SHIT, YOU'RE IMPAILED, LETS GO TO SURGERY". Typically terminally ill people don't receive care other than supportive care. (unless they're still putting up a fight, in which case doctors will do anything and everything, right up until you're braindead)[/QUOTE] The latter is what I meant but didn't specify.

It's almost painful seeing how much the NHS is being gutted, and don't get me wrong; I'm all for public-private parallel healthcare systems. But to be fair, if they absolutely had to make the cuts somewhere then this is where it should be. Many of the healthcare costs associated with smokers and obese people are costs that could be mitigated if those people had healthier lifestyles. So if something like this encourages those affectee people to live healthier, that's great. Unfortunately there's probably going to be a lot of whining and not much in the way of lifestyle changes. Eg whenever the government here raises the cigarette tax (I think they'll reach a total cost of $40 per pack soon), people criticise it as 'an attack on the poor' and just take the increase up the ass by skimping on other costs, rather than you know, actually trying to break away from cigarettes.

[QUOTE=sb27;50997281]But to be fair, if they absolutely had to make the cuts somewhere then this is where it should be.[/QUOTE] Why the fuck do they "absolutely have to make the cuts" when they just made a fucking promise to increase funding if Brexit passed?