Time To Pay For Your Stupidity

There's a great article on the BBC website by one of my business heroes Katie Hopkins:

BBC Website

In it she basically says it's ridiculous that the NHS is free to everyone. She agues that people who eat too much, drink too much or do too many drugs should have to pay for treatment on the NHS. After all, why should a fatty weighing 30 stone get his fat treatment for free when he caused his own fatty-bum-bum problem?

Do you agree? Is it time to do away with free healthcare and make people who have caused their own problems pay for their treatment?

We have had this discussion before and ends up with the same arguments....

Ok, lets not stop there, what about people who have driving accidents - everyone who drives has the knowledge that they could end up in an accident and as such its their own problem for driving - why should they pay for NHS treatment?

And many other examples like that.....

NHS is there for everyone who needs medical help. We all pay into it and as such expect to be treated no matter what for. The same treatment is there for everyone whenever required. (in theory)

Chris is right I'm afraid.

If you go there, where do you stop?

bwfc71 wrote:

Ok, lets not stop there, what about people who have driving accidents - everyone who drives has the knowledge that they could end up in an accident and as such its their own problem for driving - why should they pay for NHS treatment?

That's a silly answer. Car accidents are instant, you don't have a car crash and then pitch up at A&E 6 months later with a leg missing.

Diseases caused by too much eating, drinking, smoking etc are slow builders, they don't cause you damage overnight. You don't know you are going to have a car crash, but you know stuffing your fat face with burgers and chips all day is going to kill you one day.

Seems quite an obvious answer to me. The NHS would be billions better off and people would perhaps be less inclined to get so fat if they thought it would hit them in the pocket.....where is the downside?

BWFC71 is hardly going to agree with the original post as he's penciled in for an operation next year to have his huge gut removed. I'm fat and I love it. But I know when I'm older it might come back to bite me on the arse. But I knew the risks so I would have no one to blame but myself if the NHS started to charge.

I'm with Nat on this to an extent, taking drugs and drinking too much alcohol is self inflicted unlike havung a car crash which isn't exactly self inflicted depending on the circumstances of the crash.

I don't know if anyone watched the 999 show on channel 4 on mondays but some of the idiots on there should pay for NHS treatment just for waisting the NHS time. There was a woman who was about 30stone who had got stuck in her flat and practically lived in a hammock specially built for her weight, it took about 5 paramedics to lift her off the floor back into her fecking hammock, don't tell me that's not a waste of the NHS money,

The NHS was set up to treat everyone regardless of their personal circumstances. Once you start deciding who you can and cannot treat you are on the slippery slope where the ' haves ' can afford the best health care and the ' have nots ' are cast aside.

http://www.theboltonnews.co.uk/news/10049084.Health_trust_losing___1_3m_a_month/?ref=mc

Reebok Trotter wrote:The NHS was set up to treat everyone regardless of their personal circumstances. Once you start deciding who you can and cannot treat you are on the slippery slope where the ' haves ' can afford the best health care and the ' have nots ' are cast aside.

Utter rubbish. The NHS was set up many years ago in different times. Just because something was right 60 years ago, doesn't make it right today.

Times have changed, there are millions more people to support these days, the NHS is running out of money. Why should they support the people who choose to do themselves damage, thus leading to the NHS not being able to afford drugs for the unlucky ones with cancer?

Natasha Whittam wrote:

Reebok Trotter wrote:The NHS was set up to treat everyone regardless of their personal circumstances. Once you start deciding who you can and cannot treat you are on the slippery slope where the ' haves ' can afford the best health care and the ' have nots ' are cast aside.

Utter rubbish. The NHS was set up many years ago in different times. Just because something was right 60 years ago, doesn't make it right today.

Times have changed, there are millions more people to support these days, the NHS is running out of money. Why should they support the people who choose to do themselves damage, thus leading to the NHS not being able to afford drugs for the unlucky ones with cancer?

We can't have a lottery system where health is concerned. I agree that drugs, drink and tobacco are a drain on NHS resources but that is why they have so many advertising campaigns to try and educate people about the harm caused by drink and drugs.

Until Alcohol and Tobacco are made illegal I don't see a way round it.

The NHS would be fucked if alcohol and tobacco were banned. The money the government make in taxes from them is massive and quite a bit goes to the NHS.

Bernard Dennis Park wrote:The NHS would be fucked if alcohol and tobacco were banned. The money the government make in taxes from them is massive and quite a bit goes to the NHS.

Exactly. It might be cheaper to just employ doormen to stop fat folk from entering the likes of Burger King and KFC.

OK Natasha, what about theose who become addicted to prescribed drugs - should they pay?

Or what about those due to medical mal-practice can no longer exercise and end up gaining weight - should they have to pay?

What about those born with a drug adddiction - all thanks to their mother being an addict during pregnancy, should they have to pay?

bwfc71 wrote:OK Natasha, what about theose who become addicted to prescribed drugs - should they pay?

Or what about those due to medical mal-practice can no longer exercise and end up gaining weight - should they have to pay?

What about those born with a drug adddiction - all thanks to their mother being an addict during pregnancy, should they have to pay?

You're just nit-picking. Clearly someone born with a drug addiction would be a child and therefore would receive free treatment.

There will always be exceptions and they can be looked at on a case-to-case basis. But instead of spending billions on fat bastards or greasy druggies let's spend the money on people who deserve it - like cancer patients.

What if they've got cancer from smoking 40 a day?

Bernard Dennis Park wrote:What if they've got cancer from smoking 40 a day?

Then they should pay for the treatment themselves.

If that happened taxes on cigs would have to go down, the NHS would get even less money and all patients would suffer.

Bernard Dennis Park wrote:If that happened taxes on cigs would have to go down, the NHS would get even less money and all patients would suffer.

Bullshit. The NHS isn't funded by fags.

It's funded by taxes. The government make a fortune from taxes on alcohol and tobacco. Do you not think some of that goes towards paying for the NHS?

Bernard Dennis Park wrote:It's funded by taxes. The government make a fortune from taxes on alcohol and tobacco. Do you not think some of that goes towards paying for the NHS?

Some yes, but if we cut the fatties loose we'd gain more than we lost.

There is a practical dimension to this as well. Even if fatties, etc were supposed to pay for their treatment most of them would be on benefits anyway and thus unable to pay. So no doctor is going to refuse to operate on them or treat them and we are back to square one.