Though he doesn’t heed his own advice, New York’s Mayor Michael Bloomberg has no hesitation forcing others to live by it.
Emboldened by successful drives to reduce smoking, obesity and the use of trans fats in New York city, mayor Michael Bloomberg today opened a new front in healthy living for New Yorkers by launching a campaign to reduce consumption of salt.
If a politician can grab this kind of power from a non-health care political office, imagine the kind of power he’d wield if he were appointed to a seat on some future nationalized Health Care Panel charged with making policy decisions about who gets what kind of medical care.
‘Personal responsibility’ and ‘disease prevention’ loom large in the current national health care reform debate. But what if ‘personal responsibility’ became a condition for obtaining medical care? A history of good behavior gave someone a pass to the head of the medical treatment line, while bad behavior relegated one to the end of the line or out of the queue altogether?
Who would define ‘good’ and ‘bad’? Politicians, of course. And that should terrify everyone regardless of his or her political persuasion.
The bitter debate over abortion we’re watching in Washington would be only the beginning. The next step could well be denial of medical care for any illness associated with a ‘failure of personal responsibility’. Illnesses such as sexually-transmitted diseases.
Far fetched? Not at all. In Great Britain, which has had government-run health care for decades, a conservative group recently issued a major report calling for an “end to ‘frivolous use’ of National Health Care resources” caused by “irresponsible behavior.”
Julia Manning, Chief Executive of 2010Health and the report’s co-author, says: ‘The universal healthcare system is at the core of our society, but too often it is treated with the same casual regard as calling for a taxi or booking a train ticket. We must encourage people to be more in control of their own health. It’s reassuring to know that the NHS is there for you, but that doesn’t mean you should be free to routinely end up there after a night out.’
Every year, the NHS spends eight billion pounds on avoidable health problems; including obesity related issues (£4.2bn), alcohol abuse (£2.7bn) and sexually transmitted infections (£1bn). The report argues that these are all areas where personal responsibility has failed, and the NHS acts as a safety net for bad lifestyle choices.
Is this really the kind of health care system Americans want? One in which every aspect of personal life is catalogued, judged and turned into a political football? Alas, it’s our future if the current healthcare reform passes.
Mayor Bloomberg’s wars on personal behaviors amount to an un-American assault on individual freedom. I, for one, think he and other politicians should mind their own damned business and stop their meddling in others’ lives.
Tags: behavior, health care, Mayor Bloomberg, personal responsibility, reform, STDs
Encouraging healthy lifestyles is one thing, forcing is quite another. That said, no one in the United States should go without health care because of poor decisions or because they can’t afford it. It is embarrassing that a nation as rich and powerful as the U.S can’t provide for its citizens. Regardless of one’s political stance it’s obvious that our system is broken. Health care costs are rising, benefits are being cut, and fewer jobs are offering it. Why can’t both systems co-exist? Offer tax benefits for businesses providing good, comprehensive coverage for it’s employees. Allow those without to opt in to the government system. Focus more on preventative care, which costs less in the long run.
I personally do believe the government should butt out of people’s business. Politicians should stop meddling with abortion, gay marriage and abstinence education. It’s not their damn business what people do. Abortion is legal, gay marriage should have no problem existing as a federal institution in a country where separation of church and state is in the constitution and abstinence education is a proven failure and causes more problems by kids not knowing how to prevent the spread of diseases. And yes, I want soda machines back in school to, or at least the option. My senior year was much more obnoxious because of a lack of easily accessible caffeine.