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What about the Smokers and the Obese?
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
Should the NHS continue to treat smokers and the obese?
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And your view is ?
Yes they should. As for smoking, i don't know the cost to the NHS for smoking related illnesses, but tobacco revenue does run into billions each year.
They do. They pay taxes. :rolleyes:
Smokers pay far more to the treasury through excessive duties on tobacco than they cost the NHS.
The only time someone should be denied treatment on the NHS is when their doctor doesn't believe it will benefit their health, or believes that it would be unsafe to carry out treatment as a result of obesity of smoking.
And do the obese people pay extra taxes?
My pint is that, I don't think they should receive treatment for free on the NHS because it's self inflicted.
So if someone depressed cuts themselves, and has to go to hospital, they should pay too? Alcoholics and genreal bingers...
If someone was working in knowingly unsafe conditions? The list that can be put under "self inflicted" is HUGE.
Smokers pay tax - possibly as Dis said, more than others. As such, they are entitled to thier treatment they paid for. People who DON'T pay thier taxes, people who live off benefit deliberatley and can work but choose not to... well, that's a different matter entirley...
Yes I think they should. Why should tax payers have to pay for someone to have treatment just because they can't control their drinking?
Why on earth would someone knowingly work in unsafe conditions?
And as it's been said already, smokers put much more into the treasury through taxes than they take out from health care.
Do you have a source to back this up?
Sure
http://apt.rcpsych.org/cgi/content/full/8/1/42
From Here
This: "Tobacco taxation amounts to £10.5 billion per year whereas a figure for NHS spending on tobacco related disease is £1.7 billion."
As for your earlier point, if someone gets injured in a car crash, should we withold treatment? What about sports injuries? liver disease caused by binge drinking (NB there is tax on alcohol too)? What about people with gall stones who then eat fatty foods? Should we stop treating infected needle sites for drug users, what about weaning them off their addiction? I could go on...
What happens to these people, where do they actually get treatment? If they have to pay for it themseleves, what happens to those who cannot afford it?
Like pregnant women, or women who want abortions ?
So you're saying that mentally ill people should pay for the treatment they may need because they self harm ?
Sure that will go down well with a lot of Siters.
If someone wants to smoke, the will smoke its their own body and they know the consiquences of their actions. Its stupid implememting rules of what people can/can't do.
Clearly she has no understanding of mental illness. When I had breakdowns I'd self-harm by cutting and punching things my hand turns greeny purple, but if I'd broken the knuckle I should have been denied treatment?
But even if you are suggesting that some drivers might not be at fault in an accident, are you suggesting we should charge those who were?
You simply cannot start charging people for treatment because of their lifestyles. It doesn't work like that. Where do you draw the line? Should we charge all those who get the flu if they hadn't had a jab earlier in the year? Should we charge those injured at work or on the street dure to carelessness? How about accidental pregnancies? Why should we paying for the process of delivering their new babies if the pregancy was unintentional? Etc etc etc.
going by your arguement, you should be denied treatment because it was self inflicted...
:rolleyes:
That's an awful lot of people you're cutting out for NHS treatment. Who exactly would be left?
Yes, they do actually.
Where do you draw the line at self-infliction?
Fat people and smokers are easy to attack. The mentally ill? They didn't choose to be mentally ill.
How about the men who died of heart attacks during the Great North Run? Should their families have to pay the NHS bills- it was self-inflicted, after all. How about sportsmen who get injuries playing sport? How about motorcyclists? How about the old lady who smashes her hip after slipping on a wet floor at home- that's surely self-inflicted as she should have been more careful.
My point is that anyone who thinks that NHS treatment should be measured on the lifestyle of the patient is an idiot because when it comes down to it 99% of all injuries are self-inflicted if you stare at it long enough.
If we start throwing up barriers against treatment for certain things, the second we tell one person that he or she cannot receive treatment because they are a smoker/obese/whatever, then the NHS ceases to be universal.