What the polls don’t show is that many of the obese people work in offices where they are sendentary and over worked which causes people to eat or munch and then they load you with the amount of work that two people should handle and then they tell you that you are not getting a raise in pay because you are not getting the job don’t!
Sedentary office wrk and stress are the two leading causes of obesity!
Now they are going to charge you more for everything you do that requires insurance especially health!
Yes, employers should be concerned about lost productivity due to obesity related time off, but other than some potential linkage between being obese and being more likely to get injured, I didn’t understand this article. Can you make a WC claim for a health issue related to obesity? Wouldn’t that be addressed by Health Insurance?
Riot! You have a good point.It is looking like we are headed towards a Socialistic Government qhich I am adamantly against but until lobbyist for Insurance Companies are taken out of the picture then we are at their mercy. It’s a sad time for this Country.Imagine what the fallen and forgotten military would think if they were alive today.
It is a sad time in history and to think everyone believed that BinObama would change things for the good. NOT!
It was only a matter of time before someone linked yet another article unrelated to polictics back to Obama so they could complain and moan about Socialism and Obama’s plans to make some decent changes in the country. Does no one want to discuss how lazy and self-centered our citizens are? How the great majority of us weigh more than the people of any other developed country in the world? I’ve worked in an office setting for over eight years and have not gained a pound. Stop making excuses for the overweight and stop blaming Obama and/or the government for everything bad in this country. It’s time we took responsibility for what’s going on.
“…complain and moan about Socialism and Obama’s plans to make some decent changes in the country.”
In Canada and UK it takes 6 months to get an MRI. In the US, it takes 3 days. People (who can afford to) leave the UK and Canada for things like heart surgery because they can’t get it quickly enough through their wonderful govt plans. Women with advanced breast surgery are not treated in UK: too expensive.
Those are the “decent changes” you want Obooba to implement, but I can’t seem to find where the Constitution empowers the Executive to put citizens through their paces at the gym, or to restrict their caloric intake. Oh wait, it’s right here in that section that provides for abortion on demand. My bad.
Funny, because I had two friends that both needed an MRI earlier this year – they both had to wait almost three months for the test. And that was after spending two months being passed around from one crappy doctor to another. Everyone who fights change can only site examples from the UK and Canada – why don’t we ask one of the millions who can’t afford ANY health care coverage if they would mind waiting to get a test instead of not getting it at all. Or maybe you will finally change your tune if you or someone in your family ends up wtih a terminal illness and every health care provider in this perfect country turns their back on you. You’re absolutely right – our way is the best way. We should bury our heads in the sand and continue with the status quo.
Proponents of government-run health care like to point out that countries with such a system spend a smaller percentage of their gross domestic product on health care than the United States. What they don’t like to mention is how those savings are achieved. For example:
Patients Lose the Right To Decide What Treatment They’ll Receive. Instead, patients receive whatever care politicians and bureaucratic number crunchers decide is “cost effective.”
Britain’s National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence usually won’t approve a medical procedure or medicine unless its cost, divided by the number of quality-adjusted life years that it will give a patient, is no more than what it values a year of life in great health – £30,000 (about $44,820). So if you want a medical procedure that is expected to extend your life by four years but it costs $40,000 and bureaucrats decide that it will improve the quality of your life by 0.2 (death is zero, 1.0 is best possible health, and negative values can be assigned), you’re out of luck because $40,000 divided by 0.8 (4 X 0.2) is $50,000.
There Are Long Waits for Care. One way governments reduce health care costs is to require patients to wait for treatment. Patients have to wait to see a general practitioner, then wait to see a specialist, then wait for any diagnostic tests, and then wait for treatment.
The United Kingdom’s National Health Service recently congratulated itself for reducing to 18 weeks the average time that a patient has to wait from referral to a specialist to treatment. Last year, Canadians had to wait an average of 17.3 weeks from referral to a specialist to treatment (Fraser Institute’s Waiting Your Turn). The median wait was 4.9 weeks for a CT scan, 9.7 weeks for an MRI, and 4.4 weeks for an ultrasound.
Delay in treatment is not merely an inconvenience. Think of the pain and suffering it costs patients. Or lost work time, decreased productivity, and sick pay. Worse, think of the number of deaths caused by delays in treatment.
Patients Are Denied the Latest Medical Technology and Medicines. To save money, countries with government-run health care deny or limit access to new technology and medicines. Those with a rare disease are often out of luck because medicines for their disease usually cost more than their quality-adjusted life years are deemed worth.
In a Commonwealth Fund/Harvard/Harris 2000 survey of physicians in the United States, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and the United Kingdom, physicians in all countries except the United States reported major shortages of resources important in providing quality care; only U.S. physicians did not see shortages as a significant problem. According to the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) Health Data (2008), there are 26.5 MRIs and 33.9 CT scanners per million people in the United States compared to 6.2 MRIs and 12 CT scanners in Canada and 5.6 MRIs and 7.6 CT scanners in the United Kingdom.
Breakthroughs in Life-Saving Treatments Are Discouraged. Countries with government-run health care save money by relying on the United States to pay the research and development costs for new medical technology and medications. If we adopt the cost-control policies that have limited innovation in other countries, everyone will suffer.
The Best and Brightest Are Discouraged from Becoming Doctors. Countries with government-run health care save money by paying doctors less. According to a Commonwealth Fund analysis, U.S. doctors earn more than twice as much as doctors in Canada and Germany, more than three times as much as doctors in France, and four times as much as doctors in Finland, Norway, and Sweden. The best and brightest will be encouraged to go into professions where they can earn more money and have more autonomy.
Is Government-Run Health Care Better? Proponents of government-run health care argue that Americans will receive better care despite the foregoing. Their main argument has been that despite paying more for health care the United States trails other countries in infant mortality and average life expectancy.
However, neither is a good measure of the quality of a country’s health care system. Each depends more on genetic makeup, personal lifestyle (including diet and physical activity), education, and environment than available health care. For example, in their book The Business of Health, Robert L. Ohsfeldt and John E. Schneider found that if it weren’t for our high rate of deaths from homicides and car accidents Americans would have the highest life expectancy.
Infant mortality statistics are difficult to compare because other countries don’t count as live births infants below a certain weight or gestational age. June E. O’Neill and Dave M. O’Neill found that Canada’s infant mortality would be higher than ours if Canadians had as many low-weight births (the U.S. has almost three times as many teen mothers, who tend to give birth to lower-weight infants).
A better measure of a country’s health care is how well it actually treats patients. The CONCORD study published in 2008 found that the five-year survival rate for cancer (adjusted for other causes of death) is much higher in the United States than in Europe (e.g., 91.9% vs. 57.1% for prostate cancer, 83.9% vs. 73% for breast cancer, 60.1% vs. 46.8% for men with colon cancer, and 60.1 vs. 48.4% for women with colon cancer). The United Kingdom, which has had government-run health care since 1948, has survival rates lower than those for Europe as a whole.
Proponents of government-run health care argue that more preventive care will be provided. However, a 2007 Commonwealth Fund report comparing the U.S., Australia, Canada, Germany, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom found that the U.S. was #1 in preventive care. Eighty-five percent of U.S. women age 25-64 reported that they had a Pap test in the past two years (compared to 58% in the United Kingdom); 84% of U.S. women age 50-64 reported that they had a mammogram in the past two years (compared to 63% in the United Kingdom).
The United Kingdom’s National Health Service has been around for more than 60 years but still hasn’t worked out its kinks. In March, Britain’s Healthcare Commission (since renamed the Care Quality Commission) reported that as many as 1,200 patients may have died needlessly at Stafford Hospital and Cannock Chase Hospital over a three-year period. The Commission described filthy conditions, unhygienic practices, doctors and nurses too few in number and poorly trained, nurses not knowing how to use the insufficient number of working cardiac monitors, and patients left without food, drink, or medication for as many as four days.
Does Government-Run Health Care Provide Everyone Access to Equal Care? Proponents tout government-run health care as giving everyone access to the same health care, regardless of race, nationality, or wealth. But that’s not true. The British press refers to the National Health Service as a “postcode lotter” because a person’s care varies depending on the neighborhood (“postcode”) in which he or she lives. EUROCARE-4 found large difference in cancer survival rates between the rich and poor in Europe. The Fraser Institute’s Waiting Your Turn concludes that famous and politically connected Canadians are moved to the front of queues, suburban and rural residents have less access to care than their urban counterparts, and lower income Canadians have less access to care than their higher income neighbors.
Ironically, as we’re moving toward having our government completely control health care, countries with government-run health care are moving in the opposite direction. Almost every European country has introduced market reforms to reduce health costs and increase the availability and quality of care. The United Kingdom has proposed a pilot program giving patients money to purchase health care. Why is this being done? According to Alan Johnson, Secretary for Health, personal health budgets “will give more power to patients and drive up the quality of care” (The Guardian, 1/17/09). It’s a lesson we all should learn before considering how to improve our health care system.
No you have it all wrong.What should be done is limit any amount for damages with malpractice and if the Dr screws up yank his/her license!
The hospitals in states in the U.S.that have high amounts of unibsured are packed every night with people on welfare or government run programs.It is almost impossible to get in an emergency Room and not have a minimum of 45 minute wait!The room is normally full of those that are on state or federal run programs.They are advised to go to the emergency room for care during off hours or when the local Medical Clinic is closed which is bull crap!The emergency room was made just for that emergencies not to be touted as a Dr office.
Someone mentioned how Americans are lazy I disagree Unionized Americans are overpaid but for the most part most Americans have been made to perform double what their standard position required when they were hired,just ask anyone working today and these people are NOT lazy or they would be unemployed because there is so many companies tanking in our country.
This all started with Willie’s NAFTA and until we renegotiate the terms of that arrangement we may even become the second or third most powerful country in the world.
Thinmgs are not good for this country right now and from what I have seen of our newly elected president things are only going to get worse and more government in your face.
NO MORE FREEDOM!
The government will tell you when to eat.sleep or take a crap and if you don;t follow their que then you going to be out of luck.
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What the polls don’t show is that many of the obese people work in offices where they are sendentary and over worked which causes people to eat or munch and then they load you with the amount of work that two people should handle and then they tell you that you are not getting a raise in pay because you are not getting the job don’t!
Sedentary office wrk and stress are the two leading causes of obesity!
Now they are going to charge you more for everything you do that requires insurance especially health!
Insurance: Legalized extortion!
Yes, employers should be concerned about lost productivity due to obesity related time off, but other than some potential linkage between being obese and being more likely to get injured, I didn’t understand this article. Can you make a WC claim for a health issue related to obesity? Wouldn’t that be addressed by Health Insurance?
Don’t worry: Obooba will take care of everything.
“Any health care reform plan that Obama signs is almost certain to call for nutrition counseling, obesity screenings and wellness programs.”
hotair.com/archives/2009/06/10/health-care-a-stalking-horse-for-nanny-state-restrictions/
“Ok everyone, into the parking lot for mandatory calisthenics. Remember, if you don’t participate your OboobaCare premium will go up.”
Considering your job is the cause I wouldn’t see how they could deny it!
Riot! You have a good point.It is looking like we are headed towards a Socialistic Government qhich I am adamantly against but until lobbyist for Insurance Companies are taken out of the picture then we are at their mercy. It’s a sad time for this Country.Imagine what the fallen and forgotten military would think if they were alive today.
It is a sad time in history and to think everyone believed that BinObama would change things for the good. NOT!
It was only a matter of time before someone linked yet another article unrelated to polictics back to Obama so they could complain and moan about Socialism and Obama’s plans to make some decent changes in the country. Does no one want to discuss how lazy and self-centered our citizens are? How the great majority of us weigh more than the people of any other developed country in the world? I’ve worked in an office setting for over eight years and have not gained a pound. Stop making excuses for the overweight and stop blaming Obama and/or the government for everything bad in this country. It’s time we took responsibility for what’s going on.
“…complain and moan about Socialism and Obama’s plans to make some decent changes in the country.”
In Canada and UK it takes 6 months to get an MRI. In the US, it takes 3 days. People (who can afford to) leave the UK and Canada for things like heart surgery because they can’t get it quickly enough through their wonderful govt plans. Women with advanced breast surgery are not treated in UK: too expensive.
Those are the “decent changes” you want Obooba to implement, but I can’t seem to find where the Constitution empowers the Executive to put citizens through their paces at the gym, or to restrict their caloric intake. Oh wait, it’s right here in that section that provides for abortion on demand. My bad.
Funny, because I had two friends that both needed an MRI earlier this year – they both had to wait almost three months for the test. And that was after spending two months being passed around from one crappy doctor to another. Everyone who fights change can only site examples from the UK and Canada – why don’t we ask one of the millions who can’t afford ANY health care coverage if they would mind waiting to get a test instead of not getting it at all. Or maybe you will finally change your tune if you or someone in your family ends up wtih a terminal illness and every health care provider in this perfect country turns their back on you. You’re absolutely right – our way is the best way. We should bury our heads in the sand and continue with the status quo.
Sob stories do not make the govt responsible for providing it – meaning not only that I pay for it, but that the quality of my care goes way down.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/05/the_cost_of_free_government_he_1.html
Proponents of government-run health care like to point out that countries with such a system spend a smaller percentage of their gross domestic product on health care than the United States. What they don’t like to mention is how those savings are achieved. For example:
Patients Lose the Right To Decide What Treatment They’ll Receive. Instead, patients receive whatever care politicians and bureaucratic number crunchers decide is “cost effective.”
Britain’s National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence usually won’t approve a medical procedure or medicine unless its cost, divided by the number of quality-adjusted life years that it will give a patient, is no more than what it values a year of life in great health – £30,000 (about $44,820). So if you want a medical procedure that is expected to extend your life by four years but it costs $40,000 and bureaucrats decide that it will improve the quality of your life by 0.2 (death is zero, 1.0 is best possible health, and negative values can be assigned), you’re out of luck because $40,000 divided by 0.8 (4 X 0.2) is $50,000.
There Are Long Waits for Care. One way governments reduce health care costs is to require patients to wait for treatment. Patients have to wait to see a general practitioner, then wait to see a specialist, then wait for any diagnostic tests, and then wait for treatment.
The United Kingdom’s National Health Service recently congratulated itself for reducing to 18 weeks the average time that a patient has to wait from referral to a specialist to treatment. Last year, Canadians had to wait an average of 17.3 weeks from referral to a specialist to treatment (Fraser Institute’s Waiting Your Turn). The median wait was 4.9 weeks for a CT scan, 9.7 weeks for an MRI, and 4.4 weeks for an ultrasound.
Delay in treatment is not merely an inconvenience. Think of the pain and suffering it costs patients. Or lost work time, decreased productivity, and sick pay. Worse, think of the number of deaths caused by delays in treatment.
Patients Are Denied the Latest Medical Technology and Medicines. To save money, countries with government-run health care deny or limit access to new technology and medicines. Those with a rare disease are often out of luck because medicines for their disease usually cost more than their quality-adjusted life years are deemed worth.
In a Commonwealth Fund/Harvard/Harris 2000 survey of physicians in the United States, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and the United Kingdom, physicians in all countries except the United States reported major shortages of resources important in providing quality care; only U.S. physicians did not see shortages as a significant problem. According to the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) Health Data (2008), there are 26.5 MRIs and 33.9 CT scanners per million people in the United States compared to 6.2 MRIs and 12 CT scanners in Canada and 5.6 MRIs and 7.6 CT scanners in the United Kingdom.
Breakthroughs in Life-Saving Treatments Are Discouraged. Countries with government-run health care save money by relying on the United States to pay the research and development costs for new medical technology and medications. If we adopt the cost-control policies that have limited innovation in other countries, everyone will suffer.
The Best and Brightest Are Discouraged from Becoming Doctors. Countries with government-run health care save money by paying doctors less. According to a Commonwealth Fund analysis, U.S. doctors earn more than twice as much as doctors in Canada and Germany, more than three times as much as doctors in France, and four times as much as doctors in Finland, Norway, and Sweden. The best and brightest will be encouraged to go into professions where they can earn more money and have more autonomy.
Is Government-Run Health Care Better? Proponents of government-run health care argue that Americans will receive better care despite the foregoing. Their main argument has been that despite paying more for health care the United States trails other countries in infant mortality and average life expectancy.
However, neither is a good measure of the quality of a country’s health care system. Each depends more on genetic makeup, personal lifestyle (including diet and physical activity), education, and environment than available health care. For example, in their book The Business of Health, Robert L. Ohsfeldt and John E. Schneider found that if it weren’t for our high rate of deaths from homicides and car accidents Americans would have the highest life expectancy.
Infant mortality statistics are difficult to compare because other countries don’t count as live births infants below a certain weight or gestational age. June E. O’Neill and Dave M. O’Neill found that Canada’s infant mortality would be higher than ours if Canadians had as many low-weight births (the U.S. has almost three times as many teen mothers, who tend to give birth to lower-weight infants).
A better measure of a country’s health care is how well it actually treats patients. The CONCORD study published in 2008 found that the five-year survival rate for cancer (adjusted for other causes of death) is much higher in the United States than in Europe (e.g., 91.9% vs. 57.1% for prostate cancer, 83.9% vs. 73% for breast cancer, 60.1% vs. 46.8% for men with colon cancer, and 60.1 vs. 48.4% for women with colon cancer). The United Kingdom, which has had government-run health care since 1948, has survival rates lower than those for Europe as a whole.
Proponents of government-run health care argue that more preventive care will be provided. However, a 2007 Commonwealth Fund report comparing the U.S., Australia, Canada, Germany, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom found that the U.S. was #1 in preventive care. Eighty-five percent of U.S. women age 25-64 reported that they had a Pap test in the past two years (compared to 58% in the United Kingdom); 84% of U.S. women age 50-64 reported that they had a mammogram in the past two years (compared to 63% in the United Kingdom).
The United Kingdom’s National Health Service has been around for more than 60 years but still hasn’t worked out its kinks. In March, Britain’s Healthcare Commission (since renamed the Care Quality Commission) reported that as many as 1,200 patients may have died needlessly at Stafford Hospital and Cannock Chase Hospital over a three-year period. The Commission described filthy conditions, unhygienic practices, doctors and nurses too few in number and poorly trained, nurses not knowing how to use the insufficient number of working cardiac monitors, and patients left without food, drink, or medication for as many as four days.
Does Government-Run Health Care Provide Everyone Access to Equal Care? Proponents tout government-run health care as giving everyone access to the same health care, regardless of race, nationality, or wealth. But that’s not true. The British press refers to the National Health Service as a “postcode lotter” because a person’s care varies depending on the neighborhood (“postcode”) in which he or she lives. EUROCARE-4 found large difference in cancer survival rates between the rich and poor in Europe. The Fraser Institute’s Waiting Your Turn concludes that famous and politically connected Canadians are moved to the front of queues, suburban and rural residents have less access to care than their urban counterparts, and lower income Canadians have less access to care than their higher income neighbors.
Ironically, as we’re moving toward having our government completely control health care, countries with government-run health care are moving in the opposite direction. Almost every European country has introduced market reforms to reduce health costs and increase the availability and quality of care. The United Kingdom has proposed a pilot program giving patients money to purchase health care. Why is this being done? According to Alan Johnson, Secretary for Health, personal health budgets “will give more power to patients and drive up the quality of care” (The Guardian, 1/17/09). It’s a lesson we all should learn before considering how to improve our health care system.
No you have it all wrong.What should be done is limit any amount for damages with malpractice and if the Dr screws up yank his/her license!
The hospitals in states in the U.S.that have high amounts of unibsured are packed every night with people on welfare or government run programs.It is almost impossible to get in an emergency Room and not have a minimum of 45 minute wait!The room is normally full of those that are on state or federal run programs.They are advised to go to the emergency room for care during off hours or when the local Medical Clinic is closed which is bull crap!The emergency room was made just for that emergencies not to be touted as a Dr office.
Someone mentioned how Americans are lazy I disagree Unionized Americans are overpaid but for the most part most Americans have been made to perform double what their standard position required when they were hired,just ask anyone working today and these people are NOT lazy or they would be unemployed because there is so many companies tanking in our country.
This all started with Willie’s NAFTA and until we renegotiate the terms of that arrangement we may even become the second or third most powerful country in the world.
Thinmgs are not good for this country right now and from what I have seen of our newly elected president things are only going to get worse and more government in your face.
NO MORE FREEDOM!
The government will tell you when to eat.sleep or take a crap and if you don;t follow their que then you going to be out of luck.