Health
Obesity, smoking: Personal choices in the health care debate
By: Keli Goff
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Tue, 10/06/2009 - 08:07
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Raise your hand if you are still filled with anger when you hear the name AIG and picture the more than $100 million of your tax dollars that were delegated—without your consent—for employee bonuses there. If you raised your hand you’re not alone. If you're still angry, you should be.
There is something inherently distasteful about being expected to foot the tax bill for someone else’s personal choices—particularly bad ones—and not being given any choice of your own in the matter. Which is why I am so surprised that there has been so little anger expressed by leaders on either side of the health care debate when it comes to the issue of personal choice and responsibility in health care.
According to the Centers for Disease Control, “obesity costs our nation as much as $147 billion per year in direct health care costs and lost productivity.” And according to one the nation’s oldest anti-smoking organizations, smoking costs taxpayers a whopping $300 billion dollars annually, or 1,000 times the amount of the AIG bonuses.
Some health care reform advocates will argue these costs would be lower if there were government subsidized health care, but my question is why should the government, specifically taxpayers, subsidize health care costs for conditions that are not only preventable but essentially chosen by the patient. With all of the anger surrounding the health care debate, at town halls, in the House and Senate, where is the anger about personal responsibility?
This issue hits close to home for me. Diabetes runs in my family (a reality that unfortunately, hangs over my sweet tooth like a dark cloud.) Of two family members battling the disease—one in its earliest stages—both were given a strict dietary regiment to follow. One did, and was able to forgo costly medication. The other, chose the irresistible Southern cuisine that is a staple of many African-American diets, over doctor’s warnings and his weight. Now, his health has suffered accordingly. I’m not alleging that I am disciplined enough to make a different choice than he (ask me in a few decades), but I simply don’t believe that whether I do or not is your problem.
Personal responsibility is not only up to consumers. Mayor Bloomberg’s success in curbing smoking in New York is due to a multi-pronged strategy of aggressively fining bars and restaurants that allow patrons to flout the anti-smoking ban and raising the cost of cigarettes, in essence targeting the dealer as much as the addict. A similar strategy should be undertaken federally against fatty foods and drinks (including many of the ones I love).
But as long as pro-health care reform groups such as the AFL-CIO oppose efforts to hold Americans financially accountable for their personal health choices, so that the system can afford to treat those who do live healthier lifestyles, taxpayers will continue to resist handing the government a blank check to “fix” health care.
Keli Goff is a political blogger for TheLoop21.com. She is the author of the critically acclaimed book Party Crashing: How the Hip-Hop Generation Declared Political Independence (Basic Books, March 2008). She is a regular contributor to The Huffington Post and previously served as an editorial contributor to RushmoreDrive.com. Keli can be seen regularly on national news programs including Anderson Cooper 360, The CBS Early Show, Lou Dobbs and BET.
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COMMENTS
Smoking maybe. Obesity, not always Ms. Goff. Obesity is often rooted in genetic malfunctions and other health problems. Go get some education and get back to us.
here we go again, blame the smokers and the obese for the out of control health cost, most persons do not realize that 90% of the health care dollars spent in a persons life time is in the last 1-2 years of that persons lifetime. be that smoker,non smoker, obese, healthy lifestyles ect,the same amount of dollars are spent on each group . now factor in the smokers and the obese, or unhealthy lifestyles, live shorter life spans (5-7 years) realize now less money will be paid to them in the form of social security ,medicade, private pension plans and other government programs.the argument can be made that in reality those who live unhealthy lifestyles are break even or possibly cost less then those in the other group. the figures thrown about of 147 to 300 billion spent spent on smokers and the obese for health care and lost productivity do not hold true. what is lost productivity ? if a person comes down with cancer ( smoker or non smoker ) how is that a loss to productivity to who ever they work for! they are replaced by a new person, just that simple.and as far as health care goes my father who smoked for several years quit at the age of 59, he came down with cancer at the age of 69 and died at 70. 10 to 11 years after not smoking the doctors still blamed it on smoking! how could they possibly come to that conclusion!.how can you factor that into 300 billon spent? you cant but they did!. the fact is that smokers have become a popular new source of tax revenue for the government, and the money collected is not spent to help the sick ( only a small fraction for educational advertisement) the rests goes into the general fund .so now lets target the obese,lets put special taxs on cheese burgers and frys, this is social engineering pure and simple.lets tax all meat, alcohol ,dairy ect,(new studies coming out all the time condemning these products and several others). lets include activity while where at it!.i am sure that persons that like to go skying suffer more broken bones then those who like to walk!,lets put a special health care levy on sky lifts across the nation. think about it,the slippery slope. we should not worry about what others do, but how we take care of are selfs, we are all in this together and separating persons into groups and punishing them is not the answer because in realty taken far enough we can all fall into special groups.
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