Hybrid thread - obamacare invidivdual mandate and texas hostpital

[Lithium381]

I am curious to know if the "individual mandate" would apply to everything we do, since everything we do can be tied to commerce or we can be forced to participate in that commerce by law. just as we will be compelled to purchase health-insurance for the good of the country... what else can we mandate for the good of the country?

Start by putting a penalty on those who smoke
put a penalty( or is it a tax? ) on those who are overweight - regardless of reason
put a penalty on those who can't read
put a penalty on those who don't eat healthily. there will be a list of approved foods to choose from.

this was spurred by the hospital thread . . . . they should be able to hire non-smoking healthy individuals to reduce their costs.....

if every company did it the country would be healthy again

 

[monovillage]

How about people that act/do risky sports and/or lifestyles? Should everything be broken down to actuarial values? I mean everything.

 

[Lithium381]

How about people that act/do risky sports and/or lifestyles? Should everything be broken down to actuarial values? I mean everything.

If we are to reach our Utopian society we all need to make sacrifices

 

[Sunburn74]

How about people that act/do risky sports and/or lifestyles? Should everything be broken down to actuarial values? I mean everything.

Well its not impossible to do. I think we could easily stratify out 100,000 or so behavioral lifestyles and assess penalties/tax breaks based on them risky sports being amongst them. Whether or not its right to do so is another matter. However, when the 70 percent of deaths in this country are from heart disease, cancer, and stroke (which is really heart disease of the brain) it kind of makes sense to start the cost crack down there, rather than on accidents which is like 6th on the list of leading causes of death.

 

[monovillage]

If we are to reach our Utopian society we all need to make sacrifices

I'm cool with that, as long as I get to pick out the people to be sacrificed.

 

[Lithium381]

Well its not impossible to do. I think we could easily stratify out 100,000 or so behavioral lifestyles and assess penalties/tax breaks based on them risky sports being amongst them. Whether or not its right to do so is another matter. However, when the 70 percent of deaths in this country are from heart disease, cancer, and stroke (which is really heart disease of the brain) it kind of makes sense to start the cost crack down there, rather than on accidents which is like 6th on the list of leading causes of death.

Simply put, taxes (and penalties) are the method for the government to influence behavior. Which is why there are tax "incentives" to have kids or be married. Those were deemed good for our society. If you're a smoker you contribute to a VERY LARGE portion of healthcare costs so it seems to me the government should step in and nip that in the bud right off the bat if it wants to tackle health in this country.

The government is trying to help the country as a whole, our "society" and influencing behavior in this manner would be effective. But you start to lose personal freedom. Well, you still have the choice but it becomes more expensive for you to do what you want to do, because it has been deemed not advantageous to the society as a whole.

What road do we want to go down?

As far as hiring whom you want. . . no discrimination against something you can't change, but if you make a choice you should live with that choice. Can't change your Race or skin color, nor your gender(well, we're getting close on this one)

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

Smokers already pay a smoker's tax/penalty/mandate to quit or pay a fine every time they buy a pack of cigarettes.