Both can be inherited

Yes he has Type 1 and yes having it in the family is a major factor but is also linked to a virus attacking the pancreas.

Type 2 can be caused of course by being overweight etc but you are also alot more likely to get it if its in your family.

no offence taken with this question, as a nurse of 23 years i am fully aware of the risks i take being overweight, no different to the risks i took whilst in the army, parachuting,abseiling etc or even on active duty, the risk is premature death. i'm 45 don't have diabetes, the only injuries i carry are from my time in the army and playing rugby for 20+ years, so yes i am fully aware. now if i make negative lifestyle choices the only person i can blame is myself, but saying i am less entitled to health care than any one else is a tad bigoted in my opinion. forcing me to change my lifestyle is worse. no one told me not to parachute/ climb/ abseil from big cliffs which hold risks in their own rights, so making sweeping moral judgements about who should be and who shouldn't have access to healthcare is wrong.
i asume you don't take any risks in your life? ever driven your car/motorbike too fast? taken part in contact sports? with the logic that you and a few others share on this thread your access to health care should be restricted due to your poor lifestyle choices! it just doesn't pan out once you put any thought into the arguement does it? the belief that hill walking is healthy is not a constructive counter arguement when the cost of an air ambulance is taken into account is it?


anyway i'm off for a pasty!

Slim do you get a offended withe fat jokes.Dont direct at you,but if watching a comedy show and if the comedian cracks a fat joke do get upset or offened?

I sincerely hope its a Bessie Arderns. Otherwise i'll be taking the pi$$ about your choice of pasties.

I agree with most of your post and I certainly believe that people should be free to choose their own lifestyle, risk-free or not. I was just curious that if you realised the possible implications of your weight, then perhaps it might be an incentive to do something about it.

My main gripe with this thread was the poster (think it was dj birchy?) who seemed to take pride and glee in the fact that his weight induced diabetes had its perks in the manner of free health checks that others don't..... Personally, this p!$ses me off, but maybe because I'm a grumpy sod!!...

This is a great thread.

Angry Pirate is right in the sense of there being moral hazard in offering free treatment at the expense of the taxpayer, for 'self inflicted' conditions eg obesity. It's the same as if the state offered you free car insurance you would be less bothered about locking it up or taking precautions because you knew it would be paid for by the state if anything happened anyway.

BUT the NHS is not a magic wand. If somebody develops a health condition as a result of being obese then it's not a case of the taxpayer writing a cheque and the patient being cured. The NHS can help treat the condition (and a lot of what they do involves trying to make them have a healthier lifestyle) but the patient still has to suffer the condition, lack of mobility, breathlessness, pains, dizziness, whatever the symptoms are. So in effect it is like the 'excess' on insurance. Your car insurance makes you share some of the insurance burden by paying excess if you make a claim, to give you an incentive to look after yourself. Anybody who gets ill as a result of an illness brought on by obesity ends up having to go through a lot of suffering and lifestyle restrictions so they are paying a big 'excess', NHS treatment or not.

With healthcare its impossible to get into the question of making judgements on risk and denying treatment. Like Slim says he was in the army and played rugby, would you withdraw treatment to somebody who did those activities because they are risky...? We would end up with a health and safety culture where nobody would do anything. You'd be told that your kids' school was not playing rugby any more because the State had deemed that rugby was an unnecessary health risk that children shouldn't take.

Also looking at it in the other argument of net gain/loss to the taxpayer. Lets say a fat guy gets an obesity related illness aged 50. He ends up having treatment by the NHS (at the expense of the taxpayer) for 5 years then dies. Meanwhile his mate is a super fit athlete who doesn't smoke/drink/do anything risky. He lives till 98. For 33 years he gets full state pension entitlement, he gets winter fuel allowance. He consumes public resources. He gets given free health checks as a result of being a pensioner, and gets freebies on public transport as a result of being a pensioner. At the end of his 98 years as a result of his body just packing in through old age, he starts getting more and more small ailments which require treatment by the NHS, funded by the taxpayer. Assuming that for the last 33 years he is not working and making net contribution to the tax system, then he's become more expensive than the fatty who died at 55.

Should people pay higher taxes for having a healthier lifestyle, as they carry a greater potential burden for the taxpayer through living longer...?

People who smoke and drink pay more tax as a result of their 'habits'. Smokers contribute something like £9 billion per year in excise, and then conveniently die younger.

How much extra healthcare do they require in their lifetime compared to non-smokers/drinkers?

Where do we go though with this ?

People with hereditary diseases having kids can't have treatment because their parents knew they'd pass on said disease ?

We dont.

not really, it wasn't the sizist remarks that offended it was the implication that fat people are somehow socially less apt or able, along with a belief expressed that access to medical provision should be witheld due to our poor life choices. i am aware that these are personal beliefs but also believe i have a right to challenge them.

on the joke front, i find all offensive jokes highly amusing and believe there are very few boundaries that should not be crossed when it comes to humour. as long as the joke does not promote hatred or try and oppress anyone i think bring it on.

thank you, that's the point i was trying to make, next stop eugenics. the goverment introduced the N.I.C.E guidlines to try and decide who should get treatment and introduced cost as a measurement, it is begining to fall flat on it's face because no one person is more deserving than another when it boils down to it. health care should not be driven by market forces, it should be diven by need.
just because cancer drugs are expensive does not mean they should not be available.
the question is where do you draw the line?

if you get lung cancer from smoking----- no treatment
get cancer from working down the pit/ with asbestos----treatment


both lifestyle choices!

The revenue that smokers pay to the Treasury, which is 90% of the price, amounts to about £9billion.
Health care costs for smokers is about half that figure, so the Treasury makes a big profit.
Have you ever wondered why the government doesn't make smoking illegal?
They can't afford to.

I believe a lot of the current governmenty are smokers.

Cameron and his cronies were well known for bumming fags when at Eton.