http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=479892&in_page_id=1770&ct=5
What do you think, should smokers and overweight people be refused treatment from the NHS, which they pay their taxes towards?
2007-09-04 07:37:36 · 32 answers · asked by Chipmunk 6 in News & Events ➔ Current Events
Everyone pays their Tax & National insurance contributions & overweight people & smokers receive no reduction in the amounts they pay so why should they not receive the same treatment from NHS as others?
Some skinny people have worse health problems that obese people. Besides, if only healthy people were eligible for treatment we wouldn't need the NHS anyway, would we?
2007-09-04 08:04:43 · answer #1 · answered by monkeyface 7 · 3⤊ 0⤋
It's a tricky one. Realistically the point of the NHS is that everyone gets treated so from that point of view they should. Smokers and excessive drinkers also pay a significant amount of extra tax due to their habits and most of the people in all of those categories pay tax to fund the NHS so logically they should get treatment. As for obesity, it isn't always a result of a lifestyle choice and can be genetic or due to an illness (although this provides a convenient excuse for people who are just lazy and eat too much). The problem is how to distinguish who is ignoring the advice and who has a genuine problem. So I think that, yes NHS treatment should be available to these people. However I do believe that there should be restrictions (I think there already are to some extent) on things such as organ transplants, someone who destroys their liver through drinking should not get another in preference to someone who was unlucky.
2016-05-21 02:50:55 · answer #2 · answered by katharine 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Those who have paid National Insurance stamps should not be denied treatment. And, let's face it, taxes generated by smokers more than pay for any treatment they need.
Vouchers for fruit and veg etc. What next, soup kitchen
I don't like being lectured and bullied by the creeps in power at the moment but I'll be damned if I'll accept it from a rich, old Etonian, who has still refused to answer whether or not he took drugs when he was younger. If we have to have an Etonian leader of the Tories, why can't we have someone like Supermac? MacMillan represented a Northern working class area for many years. That says a lot about him.
As for Cameron, we all found out how caring he is when he cleared to Rwanda when his constituency was under water. Iwas actually going to vote for him but not now! I am not overweight but I do smoke. Is it any wonder when you consider the everyday worries that we all have about just about everything?
PS I do hope that all the National Insurance contributions that I have paid throughout my working life will be refunded!
2007-09-04 08:28:26 · answer #3 · answered by Beau Brummell 6 · 1⤊ 0⤋
What a can of worms they have opened. Almost everything you do is a risk. Smoking and being overweight are just two examples.
If they want to discriminate then priority should be given to people who have actually worked and paid Nat Ins. Are they brave enough to refuse people on benefits with 'risk' problems and who have paid no Insurance contributions? And what about all the influx of immigrants who have paid nothing into this country's tax revenue? What about the 'health tourists'? Will they continue to get free treatment. You bet they will! I say this because they don't seem to have mentioned this section of NHS users! Sorry, Dave you've just lost another vote.
2007-09-04 10:10:42 · answer #4 · answered by Clio 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Obviously not- but I believe the NHS is already moving toward a 'triage' system, previously used in battlefield/emergency situations where medical care as an expensive resource is given firstly to those who would most benefit. Habitual smokers/alcoholics or chronically overweight people need to give a commitment towards mending their ways otherwise the treatment would be an ineffectual waste of time and expensive resources (given that an extensive support service is in place to help them)
Excellent and thought provoking Q btw!
2007-09-04 08:22:00 · answer #5 · answered by alienfiend1 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Ok! let us go the whole hog. Reintroduce food rationing bring in direction to employment, Ration electricity requiring an explanation if the norm is exceeded. Prermits to travel needed" Is your journey helpful to the economy" A curfew at 17:00 in winter and 20:00 in summer. Compulsory PT at 8:30 am Night shift at 20:30hrs A limit to each persons NHS enxxpenditure of say £X per year . Can't think of anything else off hand, but 1984 has gone by Stalin is alive in spirit and Hiltler has arisen. How's that?
2007-09-04 08:38:00 · answer #6 · answered by Scouse 7 · 2⤊ 0⤋
Ahhh I do love the Tories! They have good principals but i'm not entirely convonved thye really think them thruough properly!
If people have paid tax towards the NHS, then it is only right they should be entitled to treatment.
However for example I recently read somwthing about a 19 year old girl who ruined her liver from binge drinking.
To help her new liver she was told to never really drink alcohol again. But she admits to going out alot and drinking so she doesn't feel left out.
Now if she ruins this liver due to binge drinking it wouldn't be right if she was given a new one over someone mroe deserving.
So I do get where the Tories are coming from in a way
2007-09-04 08:06:32 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
If this ridiculous policy ever came into being I would be furious.
Some smokers never have health problems from smoking. (My Gran smoked 40 a day from the ages of 17-85. She died of old age) Whereas I know non-smokers who have died of emphysema. What about alcohol related illnesses and injuries? Are they going to turn anyone away that drinks any alcohol? Or people who eat fast food regularly?
FFS, this is ridiculous. We all pay our National Insurance, therefore all have the right to treatment. To start picking and choosing who "deserves" medical care is taking a step away from Democracy, as far as I'm concerned.
2007-09-04 09:09:21 · answer #8 · answered by lululaluau 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Most Tories have unhealthy lifestyles. They don't mean unhealthy - they mean people in poverty who are under enormous stress and use drugs and alcohol to cope - or even get addicted to food or gambling. Labour is as bad. The disability discrimination act says they can discriminate against someone addicted to alcohol - because it's self inflicted! No one gets sick on purpose. The people who live in poverty - often with illness and disability are discriminated against by all parties. Even the old people - if they are poor get discriminated against. I bet the Queen doesn't have to beg for a couple of hundred quid towards her heating in winter and would be insulted if Gordon brown took her a £10 bonus at Christmas! Here Missus - here's ten quid - now do your speech!
2007-09-04 08:00:37 · answer #9 · answered by Mike10613 6 · 2⤊ 0⤋
No I do not agree. I paid into the NHS since 1957 but have hardly ever used the service. I believe that every single citizen of the UK is entitled to use the NHS and receive free at point of need treatment.
The Tories are showing their true colours and typically they are the colours of hate, especially of the lower paid sector who often have unhealthy jobs and may live in unhealthy housing schemes, many built by the Tories in the 1950s, running with damp and infested with rats.
The Welfare State, including the NHS, belongs to all of our people. It is our living memorial to our war dead and we do not vote for politicians to tell us how to live our lives.
If we allow this sort of Tory nonsense to spread, before we know it, the politicians will not only be telling us what to eat, as they are already trying to do our children in schools, but they'll be telling us how to dress, what to wear and what to think.
On the subject of health and healthy eating and school dinners. Have you noticed, hardly any of the kids are eating school dinners these days. Some schools even have a lock-down at lunch break, in effect holding children as prisoners [kidnapped] in school to stop them going out to buy what they snootily call junk food.
In a recent survey it has been found that not only do the so called lower classes eat 'junk' food, but that we're all doing it. The British just love stodge, fried everything and baked beans.
An apple is not healthy - the acid in it rots our teeth.
The Daily Mail is a notorious newspaper, a low life flithy red-top to be precise, which stooge-like, licks the boots of it's Tory bosses and cowtows to the great and the good as though they were without sin.
The Commons is full of corruption lies and worse.
MPs at the next election need a damn good hard lesson. I'm voting for someone completely new. Forget Labour, forget the Tories and above all forget the Lib Dems. I'm looking for a candidate, not UKIP, who will represent me and not him or herself in parliament. Anyone?
2007-09-04 07:56:18 · answer #10 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 1⤋