Fields: No Free Medical Care For Overeaters, Others Who Live Recklessly
BY SAM FIELDS
Conservatives are fond of calling for government to get out of our lives.
Maximize “freedom and responsibility”.
It’s a great sound bite but the facts show that they get the “freedom.” The rest of us get the “responsibility”…to pick up the tab.
It estimated that the rest of us will pay in excess of $200 BILLION this year to cover the healthcare and lost productivity costs for Americans who are convinced The First Amendment requires the rest of us to pick of the tab for the consequences of their diet of Big Macs and McNuggets.
Listen up: “Hamburger, fries and a Coke are NOT the three food groups.
But even these folks are not the worst of it.
There is every reason to believe that any day the Supreme Court will overturn Obamacare.
That means that 40,000,000+ will continue to refuse to buy health insurance even when offered generous subsidies as Obamacare does.
Instead they will rely on their god given right to use Emergency Rooms for everything from a cold to cancer and not pay a dime.
If and when a bill does come, they will use it to light up their next Marlboro.
Medicare and Medicaid aside, these uninsured freeloaders are costing each of us $1000 a year in taxes and inflated health insurance costs.
No Motorcycle Helmet Costs Us Money
This was recently brought home when The Center For Disease Control published a report on the co$$$t of riding a motorcycle without a helmet. Motorcycles account for 1% of the miles driven, but are involved in 14% of the serious accidents and deaths.
Automobile deaths are at an all-time low while helmetless riders have driven motorcycles deaths to an all-time high.
Back in the early 90’s a number of states, including Florida, amended mandatory helmet laws proclaiming the mantra of: “Let those who ride decide”.
What they forgot to mention was the second half of this catchphrase that proclaims: “and those who don’t pay for it.”
The Herald has written an editorial calling for reinstating the helmet law. The editorial points out that, while Florida requires the helmetless to carry $10,000 in medical insurance, the average cost of helmetless injuries is $39,877.
The CDC estimates that the rest of us have to eat a $171,000 for each “serious” helmetless head injury. The report also tells us that helmetless riders are many times more likely to have an accident that leads to serious head injuries.
But helmets are only the tip of the “I play, you pay” iceberg.
Let ‘Em Die
So what’s the solution?
Sorry Mayor Bloomberg, it’s not limiting the size of a Slurpee to 16 ounces.
The solution is to require these “libertarian leaches” to live with the consequences of their choices.
No health insurance? No Emergency Room.
No helmet? Out the hospital door when your insurance and cash runs out.
Got fat? Your employer should be allowed to make you chose between Dunkin’ Donuts and your job.
The same for cigarettes.
In most cases, government should not be stopping bad behavior.
But they damn well should not be making the rest of us subsidize it.
(Sam Fields is a vegetarian who eats no meat or dairy. He also doesn’t ride a motorcycle, with or without a helmet. And he is on Medicare.)
June 16th, 2012 at 11:53 pm
Sam, I think this column is brilliant and I couldn’t agree more.
Bravo to you for being a vegan vegetarian as well!
June 17th, 2012 at 1:33 am
It continues to amaze me how a seemingly educated man like Sam Fields can write such drivel while either not believing a word of it, or not thinking it through to its logical conclusion.
Should we also stop AIDS/HIV research and care to those irresponsible people who also go “helmetless”?
Should the public fund any drug rehabs or half way houses for addicts?
There are lots of freeloading illegal aliens who get all sorts of government services from school to medical care. Would Sam Fields cut them off?
There are all sorts of people who are saved or rescued from their own misadventures. Fire-Rescue, Coast Guard, Beach Lifeguards, Wilderness search and rescue Park Rangers all help irresponsible and reckless people every day without charging them.
June 17th, 2012 at 11:57 am
It’s all about the money, Sam? You have no human kindness in you? You want to live in a country where people are dying in the street, which is the result of denying medical attention to the poor?
Many people can’t afford medical insurance. Others work for companies like Wal-mart that make it hard to buy affordable medical insurance?
Or do you just want to punish people that don’t eat like you? Who is going to judge what is the right way to eat? You?
June 17th, 2012 at 12:28 pm
I say that buffet restaurants should put a scale at the entrance and charge people by the pound.
Airlines basically haul “weight” around. The fatter one is, the more the cost of hauling your carcass around on a jumbo jet. I say, weigh people at the check-in counter. If you pre-paid a ticket, then there will be an obesity surcharge before boarding.
All one has to do is sit outside of Jaxson’s Ice Cream and watch the heifers line up at the ice cream window. It looks like a butter ball convention. I say weigh the bastards at the window. If a woman weighs over 200 lbs. and is ordering ice cream, that cone is going to run her $25 ($3 for the cone and the rest in tax for the hospital district).
June 17th, 2012 at 3:27 pm
So Sam.
No Medicare Part D for you?
June 17th, 2012 at 4:37 pm
In other words listen up fat people. We are not going to continue to bail your fat asses out when you have no insurance etc. but have that big mac you just swallowed. Then when they need medical treatment who bails them out the taxpayer. Now as far as people who smoke-hold on. Cigerettes are taxed, meaning peole ar e paying for services if the y get sic. Come on have you seen what a pack cost. The State is making a fortune of the smoker. You fat peole go to the grocery store pay the same tax etc as I do. Should be- you pay more because you are fat. So get to the gym , stop eatin so much and get healthy or pay up. No to compare a cigerette smoker to some obese person(fat) is not the same. The smoker is paying to smoke and or eventually get sick. As the horse pays the same a s I do at the check out line… Not fair….
June 17th, 2012 at 6:42 pm
is it ok if the criminals are indigent and the taxpayers foot the bill, but if the sick are indigent let ’em die?
June 17th, 2012 at 8:55 pm
The Ox gores everyone in a civilized society….
June 17th, 2012 at 9:31 pm
Sounds awfully judgmental. You drink? Then according to your point of view, whatever happens to your liver, you pay for it.
And what about a woman who finds out she’s carrying a child who will have Down’s syndrome. If she decides to have the baby, should the child go without treatment because the mother made a decision that will cost taxpayers health care dollars?
June 18th, 2012 at 8:48 am
@dk You are right. Fields is a hypocrite. He takes money to defend the indigent in court, yet wants to deny them the ER. Shame on you, Fields.
June 18th, 2012 at 10:36 am
Sam, have you wondered about people whom take prednisone to stay alive and work who encounter weight gain as a side effect? Other meds can do the same thing as well as being disabled and not being able to move freely.
There are numerous people I encounter in my filed who stay fit by engaging in various activities to promote cardiac heatlh who end up with joint problems and injuries which cost a lot of money at times. Shall we charge healthy runners sky high premiums?
As far as helmetless motorcyclists. I would be interested in what the total savings are when the cyclists dies due to not having a helmut since we save on life saving costs and rehab costs.
Some times the numbers are better when you have people kick the bucket early.
June 18th, 2012 at 1:06 pm
I have always said they should amend the helmet(less)law to require that motorcyclists who ride without helmets be required to have the organ donor amendment on their license in addition to the 10k insurance. I am an avid rider, always helmeted and an organ donor BTW.
June 18th, 2012 at 6:36 pm
Dear DK ,etc
The Constitution guarantees the right to “counsel” for the accused but not to Golden Corral for the Chocolate Waterfall.
June 18th, 2012 at 8:01 pm
The constitution also doesn’t say that the government should interfere with our way of life. Too bad, Fields,.
June 20th, 2012 at 6:44 am
i’m not talking about counsel for the accused or convicted, i’m talking about free medical care. if you are very sick and can’t afford the treatment, commit a crime and the taxpayers who are sheltering u in the correctional system has to foot your medical bills. if you are sick but law abiding, well… you are SOL
June 21st, 2012 at 12:54 pm
dk–i stand corrected
June 22nd, 2012 at 1:30 pm
So Mrs. Obama,is harrassed for teaching folks how to be healthy, by eating the right amount of vegetable, all you hear is “she can’t tell people how to eat”
WELL WHAT IS IT YOU WANT?