Voice in My Head

Arrghh: 

Failing to follow a healthy lifestyle could lead to free [National Health Service] treatment being denied under the Tory plans. Patients would be handed "NHS Health Miles Cards" allowing them to earn reward points for losing weight, giving up smoking, receiving immunisations or attending regular health screenings. Like a supermarket loyalty card, the points could be redeemed as discounts on gym membership and fresh fruit and vegetables, or even give priority for other public services — such as jumping the queue for council housing.

But heavy smokers, the obese and binge drinkers who were a drain on the NHS could be denied some routine treatments such as hip replacements until they cleaned up their act. Those who abused the system — by calling an ambulance when a trip to the GP would be sufficient, or telephoning out of hours with needless queries — could also be penalised. 

I hate such official haughtiness and bristle at such Nanny-State excesses instinctively, but there's also a little voice in my head that mocks me for that response. "I thought you were for personal responsbility," it needles. "Libertarian, are you? Then why should people with unhealthy lifestyles gets subsidized by the government?"

And I'm not sure I know how to answer that.

[hat tip: Martin Owens]

Comments

[Maciek]

Dear Mr Van Bakel

Your latest article Voice in My Head made me laugh. No, not for the subject or a lack of comment – neither do I know how to comment it.

I just wished I lived in a small town in Lincolnshire and worked in a nursing home again, so I could show this article to my colleagues: (a) an obese woman, whose senseless diet not only made her overweight but also diabetic; (b) a lady, who claimed that all foreigners should go back home – silly to hear that from a Scott, whose husband occupied Germany after WW Two with other British soldiers, and (c) a Filipino nurse, who always knew better and therefore drived everyone mad with her verbal diarrhea.

I wish I could see their expressions when I tell them that a man who wrote it is a friend of mine, and that I find to be ‘a very important problem’ what he wrote about.

Cheers
M

P.S.I think the best comment for the Health Miles Card would be words of a great political leader and a Noble Prize laureate Mr Lech Wales: 'I support it and more - I’m against it!'

[solinox]

I think what rubs you wrong about this is that it's being run by the government. If a private insurance company had the same policy, you'd be all for it, am I right? The problem is that it's the government telling people what to do, and they don't have any choice about it. They can't go somewhere else and pay a premium for insurance that will support their lifestyles. They're being denied premium housing and gym memberships and other things, which wouldn't happen under a private system because private insurance companies don't run apartment buildings (some run gyms).

It goes back to privatization.

[Maciek]

Solinox, I think you are right.
If it was a private insurance company I would welcome the idea of the Health Miles Card since that would be fair – if I care more for my health I pay less premium and vice versa. And yes, given that it is a government project I don’t like it. However, I cannot say it is a bad idea while I can see with my own eyes the public money wasted here in the UK on national health system and social help provided to people who never have tried contributing at any rate to the system.
But you know what? Knowing that the government would monitor my lifestyle makes me sick. They already watch me on the cctv, 300 times a day per average here in London. If that was not enough, they are talking about taking my DNA.

[Martin Owens]

Some kind of plausible argument can be made at every step down the road to hell, and that’s what really scares me. Because it won’t stop with denying health insurance to people with the “wrong” lifestyles, will it?

Already we’ve got lots of “experts” who are champing at the bit to put an RF ID chip in everybody’s arm. It’s for your own good, really. And they will link more and more of your information to more and more databases- all in the name of health and safety, of course. And the day will come when you pass through some checkpoint- building security maybe?- and the machine reads your chip and find out you’ve been eating too much bacon for breakfast, according to the published national standards. So a message goes into the National Nutrition Database, which tells all the grocery stores not to let you buy any more bacon for a while. Or maybe it goes to your health care provider. And for your own good, you get detained and shipped off to a cholesterol rehab facility, where you run in the 100̊ heat and do push-ups until they’re satisfied you’re within established parameters again. ( Run you to death?- that couldn’t happen! Remember this is the same government that did such a fine job in New Orleans and Iraq!)

Since being overweight is an extra health cost, will governments run around fining fat people? Pulling off the highway to go to the scales may not be just for truckers anymore.

And then there’ll be other “experts: with carefully crafted “ studies” to prove they ought to regulate how many times a week you have sex, or coffee, or go to the movies. And hey, stress is a prime cause of high blood pressure, so let’s make sure people aren’t exposed to so much stress. Like all those pesky news stories about government mistakes and corruption. For your own good.
Really.

[Rogier]

Solinox, Martin, Maciek:

That's it. Thanks for shutting up the little voice!

[David]

Even though the voice has been shut up, let's not forget that fat smokers won't be exempt from paying for the NHS plan. They'll just get nothing for their money.

[Phelps]

Ditto to David. They are paying to be denied service.