If you are considered clinically obese, perhaps you should think twice before moving to Great Britain. Or if you are already there, perhaps you should seriously consider leaving. One of the top physicians in the U.K. says that overweight people are lazy, greedy, and should not receive medical treatment.
Remember that the U.K. operates under a government-run healthcare system. Socialized medicine is a system in which medical decisions are not made between a patient and his/her doctor. The system is based upon several factors, such as need, available resources, and the approval of the government before treatment is given.
If, for example, you are 70 years old and in need of coronary by-pass, you may well be deemed too old for the system to pay for your surgery.
These types of decisions are reached by considering the patient's age, overall health, risk factors, likelihood of recovery, and 'available resources,' i.e., the amount of tax dollars allocated for such procedures.
Within such systems of healthcare, the populace is more often than not herded into compliance with government-set standards for weight, diet, exercise habits, etc., so that taxpayers will not feel that they are helping subsidize those lazy, good-for-nothing sloths who refuse to acquiesce to the accepted standards for the society.
To some degree such a mindset already exits in the U.S., though not to the extent that one finds in places like the U.K. or Canada. One emergency room physician in the U.S. was overheard complaining to nurses about a patient who sustained massive head-trauma while riding a motorcycle.
He was not wearing a helmet.
The physician in question sanctimoniously suggested that he should not have to pay for a loser like this patient, who didn't have the common sense to wear a helmet, and that taxpayers should not have to pick up the bill for it.
In other words, so much for the Hippocratic Oath. This is the age of making value judgments on human life based solely upon how much money taxpayers have to fork over to care for smokers, the obese, people who ride without helmets, and the like.
Luckily, the physician who made the remark was operating under a system not yet fully seized by government. The people in the U.K. are not so lucky.
Given that taxpayers foot the bill for everyone's medical care, who is to say that at some point healthcare will be refused to those who smoke? Or those who are overweight?
After all, the good doctor in the U.K. thinks that fat people are by definition lazy and greedy. The bastards! Let them fend for themselves! Refuse to give them treatment for diabetes, heart disease, circulatory problems, etc. After all, the dirty rotten human vermin brought it on themselves!
And this is precisely one of the core problems with socialized medicine. Everyone has a stake in everyone else's healthcare. This is not a good thing.
In fact, one of the salient features that highlights the superiority of private healthcare is that what I do is my business, and what you do is yours. I don't care whether or not you smoke or eat all the 'correct' foods. That is your business.
And, in like manner, it is simply none of your damn business what I eat, how much I weigh, how much I choose to smoke, or if I decide to ride a motorcycle without a helmet to the Philip Morris plant, light up a good smoke, drink an entire keg of beer, and eat a dozen Big Macs.
In a PRIVATE healthcare system, as long as I have a doctor who is willing to treat me, I will get medical care. And if I should need coronary by-pass surgery, I will probably get it immediately.
But in Canada or the U.K. I may well be dead by the time my name comes up on the waiting list.
As for the physician in Great Britain with his condescending attitude, sorry, Doc. I don't need you, your healthcare system, or your attitude. I wouldn't bring my dog to be treated in the U.K.
And woe be unto the poor little thing if he were overweight.
Should dog owners in the U.K. be fearful that you may begin to systematically euthanize all overweight dogs?
