Get in shape or pay a price.
That’s a message more Americans could hear if the health care reform bills passed by the Senate Finance and Health committees become law.
This is CHANGE we can believe in. The Senate is proposing that not everyone is equal in the health care debate. Pressure will be on the workers to live a healthy lifestyle, or their employer can raise their insurance rate. That’s right people it’s time to lose weight, stop smoking, and lower your cholesterol.
The proposal is backed by the US Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers. Opposition includes unions, the American Heart Association, the American Cancer Society, and the American Diabetes Association. No surprise that the unions are against the proposal. Have you seen all the fat GM workers that were on television when the bail out was at its peak?
The incentives could attack a national epidemic of obesity. They also cut to a philosophical core of the health care debate. Should health insurance be like auto insurance, in which good drivers earn discounts and reckless ones pay a price, thereby encouraging better habits? Or should it be a safety net in which the young and healthy support the old and sick with the understanding that youth and good health are transitory?
Health insurance should definitely be like auto insurance. It is a hedge against a potential bad outcome. If you are doing all the right things then you should be rewarded. Instituting a system where those who are contributing to society and not over consuming are rewarded will make for a better world.
Valeo is a company that has some good ideas with regard to implementation of health standards. You may get an insurance discount if you submit to tests proving your health. If you choose to be anonymous then you pay a higher premium. This concept is no different than drivers who allow their insurer to put a GPS in the car for a discounted premium. Basically the message is everyone pays a certain price, but if you jump through hoops then you get a discount.
We are facing 10% unemployment, along with the rise of robotic factories, and information technology that reduces the need for manual labor. A few less people would bring the labor market back into equilibrium. It would continue transforming the world workforce into intellectual laborers. This would be progress from the industrial revolution where everyone labored in dirty factories.
What about the safety net for the old and the sick? Since death is inevitable it would be illogical to expend resources on individuals where there would not be significant benefit. The old have had their time in the spotlight and need to step off the stage of life and let a new generation take over. The world belongs to the young and the ambitious, not the old, fat, and lazy. This is not to say that we should stop research into life extending technologies. If new technologies can extend the useful lifespan of the brain and body, thereby extending productive life years, then such research is welcome. Research has shown that obesity and Alzheimer’s disease are related. This shows that fat people will continue to be a drain on the system by taking up space in nursing homes at an earlier age.
What kind of world would your eyes prefer?
There should be some benefits for the obese. We need a biodiesel commodity on the futures markets so that fat people can sell futures contracts to deliver a quantity of blubber for processing. Considering that these people are irresponsible with how they live their lives today, they would probably sell more futures than they could deliver safely. Which would mean that we would have to send some repo men to “collect” on the contract so the rest of us can drive our fine German or Japanese automobiles. This is a good way to reduce unemployment, carbon emissions, and Alzheimer’s disease in one simple step.
There would be economic benefit from a futures market in fat. Funeral homes could be transformed into biodiesel reclamation stations to provide our future energy sources. This would be an economic shift and allow petroleum companies to get into a new market, thus creating jobs. We could have Valvoline Haus or The Penzoil Home for the Obese as nursing homes for our large friends. Monsanto could buy McDonald’s to create a new form of genetically engineered fast food for our livestock that will fuel the economies of the future.
McDonald’s macht Kraftstoff!
