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No Country For Rich, Fat Men
Given the increasing weight of taxation on the middle- and upper-incomes in this country and the first step towards savings 'wealth' taxation, it is perhaps no surprise that the nation's employers have decided enough is enough with another implicit tax - healthcare. As the WSJ reports, cost-conscious companies (such as spare tire manufacturer Michelin North America) are passing on the additional costs of healthcare to their obese workers. Are you a man with a waist measuring 40 inches or more? Have high blood pressure? Starting next year, your unhealthiness will cost you.
Employees who hit baseline requirements in three or more categories (blood pressure, glucose, cholesterol, triglycerides, and waist size) will receive up to $1,000 to reduce their annual deductibles. Those who don't qualify must sign up for a health-coaching program in order to earn a smaller credit.
But, six in 10 employers say they plan to impose penalties in the next few years on employees who don't take action to improve their health, according to a recent study, and current law permits companies to use health-related rewards or penalties as long as the amount doesn't exceed 20% of the cost of the employee's health coverage. Increasingly companies have flipped from the incentive scheme (to be healthy) to a penalty or 'fat tax'.
Typically 20% of a company's workforce drives 80% of health-care costs, and with companies unable to grow top-lines, the search for ever more cost-cutting means the balance of carrot and stick seems to be tilting increasingly to the stick.
So the people got their pro-equality Obamacare but if you are an 80/20 risk factor - you will be less equal than others.
Are you a man with a waist measuring 40 inches or more? If you want to work at Michelin North America Inc., that spare tire could cost you.
Employees at the tire maker who have high blood pressure or certain size waistlines may have to pay as much as $1,000 more for health-care coverage starting next year.
As they fight rising health-care costs and poor results from voluntary wellness programs, companies across America are penalizing workers for a range of conditions, including high blood pressure and thick waistlines. They are also demanding that employees share personal-health information, such as body-mass index, weight and blood-sugar level, or face higher premiums or deductibles.
Corporate leaders say they can't lower health-care costs without changing workers' habits, and they cite the findings of behavioral economists showing that people respond more effectively to potential losses, such as penalties, than expected gains, such as rewards. With corporate spending on health care expected to reach an average of $12,136 per employee this year, according to a study by the consulting firm Towers Watson, penalties may soon be the new norm.
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Employee-rights advocates say the penalties are akin to "legal discrimination." While companies are calling them wellness incentives, the penalties are essentially salary cuts by a different name, says Lew Maltby, president of Princeton, N.J.-based National Workrights Institute, a nonprofit advocacy group for employee rights in the workplace. "No one ever calls a bad thing what it really is," he says. "It means millions of people are getting their pay cut for no legitimate reason."
Companies may say they have tried softer approaches, but many haven't exhausted their options, ...
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Six in 10 employers say they plan to impose penalties in the next few years on employees who don't take action to improve their health, according to a recent study of 800 mid- to large-size firms by human-resources consultancy Aon Hewitt. A separate study by the National Business Group on Health and Towers Watson found that the share of employers who plan to impose penalties is likely to double to 36% in 2014.
Current law permits companies to use health-related rewards or penalties as long as the amount doesn't exceed 20% of the cost of the employee's health coverage. ...
...
"It opens a Pandora's box," says a full-time CVS employee who works at a distribution center in Florida. "It's none of their business." ...
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Honeywell International Inc. HON recently introduced a $1,000 penalty—deducted from health-savings accounts—for workers who elect to get certain procedures such as knee and hip replacement and back surgery without seeking more input. The company had offered $500 for participating in a program that provides access to data and additional opinions for workers considering surgery, but less than 20% of the staff joined up. Since it flipped the incentive to a penalty, the company says, enrollment has been above 90%.
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Typically, 20% of a company's workforce drives 80% of health-care costs, according to Cigna's Mr. Smith, and roughly 70% of health-care costs are related to chronic conditions brought on by lifestyle choices, such as overeating or sedentary behavior. But when employers target those conditions, employees themselves may feel targeted, especially when it comes to their weight. While companies can't say it outright, many of their measures—such as high cholesterol and high blood pressure—are proxies for obesity.
A 2011 Gallup survey estimated obese or overweight full-time U.S. workers miss an additional 450 million days of work each year, compared with healthy workers, resulting in more than $153 billion in lost productivity.
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Amen. Fuck working for idiots and thieves.
Fat Tire Ale is no longer the drink of choice at Michelin N.A.
How about intentivising homosexuality? Homosexual men collect all kinds of STD's including AIDS. They also get diseases usually known only in third world countries with bad sanitation. How about charging them extra for being homosexuals?
Thats f'in funny
Yes but they are slim and fit and don't smoke cigarettes.
Smoking pipes is not a safe alternative to cig smoking.
Smoking poles....?
...ummmm...and they set a very nice table...
Let's vote to enforce this in Congress too:) There's quite a few chubbies in both Houses for sure. Let's see how they would respond, we pay their salaries:)
Not only the chubbies; add in the fatheads. In other words, 100% of them, with SCOTUS thrown in (or out?) for good measure.
Just keep Biden, we need the laughs.
Tax the Neo-Cons everytime they say "Israel' or 'War' or 'Iran'
I never understood WTF have companies and healthcare to do with each other - I'd forbid a company to offer healthcare on the grounds of making the labour market less transparent and for the simple reason that it's not a company's business how an employee is insured - except for accidents on work
The article is principally about employer provided healthcare, which is quite common in the US, less so in Europe. In Europe they're slowly introducing random drink/drug tests on employees...
Ghordius,
Healthcare paid by the employer started in US during WW2. There was a wage and price control. Employers offered healthcare to attract workers.
I'd have said, reflexively, that it was Bush's fault, but you're correct. It's FDR's fault.
I'm pretty much to the point of let's just bring on WW3 than let this technocratic fucking bullshit advance any further. Fuck the US.
(?) I would rather wear a dirty shirt, as opposed to being executed in the {dirty shirt}. Am I lost in translation?
WWIII already started years ago... but it isn't countries vs each other, it's bankers/government vs the people, all the people
+1 dark pool of soros. When I was a child, I would ponder visions of grandure'. I made a pact with God.
" You treat me well, and I'll treat you well"... The pact was made on a winter evening, flooded house, and yet I felt warm?
they chain us only by our own vices... if it weren't for them, they would need real ones
The ACA provides that health is not a factor in determining initial premiums.
If, over time, a family incurs no or low claims, they should be rewarded, similar to a defined contribution plan, in whch one withdraws fewer or no benefits.
The less withdrawn, the more available in the account, all else being equal.
The ACA seems to offer 2 plans of insurance by referring to "integrated HSAs and HRAs."
This second plan could work like a defined contribution retirement plan, building paid-up monthly benefits that allows one to increase his funded deductible, for a lower premium.
By rewarding those who have lower claims, you keep them in the same pool, thus keeping the pool financially viable, helping to keep premiums lower for the higher claimants than they would be without the healthy part of the pool continuing to contribute.
Don Levit
You're a racist! How dare you suggest we hold people accountable for their own actions?
...sorry, I was channeling Al Sharpton for a moment there.
Having an unhealthy life style is not more costly to society.
Unhealthy people die younger, so medical costs compared with people with healthy life style (who live longer) are the same.
UPDATE for all the fuckers who junked my comment~
http://m.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/economy/economy-lab/the-...
Fuck U Tiny Tim, you pay extra for those crutches!!!
How can the heart pump blood back to the lungs/ Gravity? Who photo-shopped the 'forklift' out of that infographic?
The blood doesn't get back to the heart very well. If you look at the photo again (sorry) you'll see that the bottom of that blob is deep red. That's pooled blood. This person doesn't spend much time on his feet. Instead he lays/sits, with the blob supported so it doesn't hang.
I hear the nurses often call it an " apron" but I'm assuming that's not the medical term. ;-)
Scary thing is that these people can get nasty anaerobic infections under that flab of skin because it can't stay properly dry. We lost a patient due to this. C. perfringens in that area must be ghastly. Once the anaerobe damages the tissue so extensively other organisms invades as well. Often these patients are diabetic as well. What a horrible way to die.
Miffed;-)
Panniculus.
The scourge of surgeons and OR Staff everywhere.
Thanks, and yes I googled it like a moth to flame. I think I'll skip dinner now.
Miffed;-)
If panniculae had been common in the 19th Century, we might not know the name Herman Melville.
Thanks Jena. You should work for the SyFy channel. You have a special way of describing the macabre, in a nonchalant way.
I recognize him. That's the sonuvabitch that those fuckers at Delta put next to me on the overnight to Atlanta.
hi ho, hi ho... it's off to social security i go... hi ho, hi ho... for an obese $$$ disability go-card i go... hi ho, hi ho... with a hot fudg'D sundae too go... hi ho, ho heigh,... hi ho
Yep. Got that email on Friday. I can save $150 next year if I get a health evaluation. But I get charged an additional $150 if I don't. $300 in savings!!!
What's worse is that these cocksuckers take all the credit for me losing weight. "Look at what our program has done!"
Heres the thing: my company makes it about as difficult as possible to actually be healthy with the 50-60 hour work weeks and the travel. I either perform and get charged more or I'm out the door. Whatever. Like I even go to the doctor, but please charge me more for monthly expiring health put option called "insurance".
News Flash: this just in... the department of homeland security has just closed down thousands of illegal grow houses for 'tapeworm addicts' supposedly thought to have come from an unsuspecting anal probe of a large 'pink-slime' cartel captain...aka, 'mr. big asshole', the followed-up investigation led us to the usual pushers... micky`dies gang and their gluttonous rival, aka. the notorious burger kong's gangsta's eating dens...
updates as the bowels unload...
Ooops, sugar peddling companies are going to take a big HIT
Tax the Fat.....new paradigm.....?
Ahhh fascism, how do I love thee, let me count the ways.
I love how corporations combine with the state.
I love how CEO's & politicians can eat shrimp cocktail until their buttons pop but ban the commoner a Big Gulp or candy bar.
I love fascism for the soul crushing edict that everything must be for the good of the well connected, not the individual.
I love how one risky behavior can be condoned, even promoted, while another is pilloried.
I love how the state can allow the corporation into your private life.
I love how the state & corporation can become a religion unto itself, with the imposition of "sin taxes" under the banner of, for our own good.
I don't disagree with anything you're saying, but the sooner you realize that we're on our own, the better off you'll be...
Ahhh fascism, how do I love thee, let me count the ways.
Consider this topic nailed.
What NEVER is up for discussion is a Healthcare System which costs multiples of any civilized nation on Earth.
It smacks of yet another piece of some economic war being waged.
According to the OECD, only 1 country pays Publicly more for Heath than the US per capita (Norway). Private paying of costs, there is nobody close to the US. The US pays 5-10X what any other civilized nation pays. Private + Public, the US is 2.5X the OECD average of 30+ countries.
Amongst us, we end up fighting like dogs over things which shouldn't be an issue.
First the Gov't and Corporations turn the Health System into an out of control shithole/blackhole of cost, then pass paying for it onto the masses.
It's the Hunger Games serf-bitchez.
White collar jobs pretty much guarantee you are a cubicle slave. When employers start giving you time to exercise on their dime, and have healthy lunch options brought in, you just let me know.
I agree. The first thing I noticed after I left my cubicle for good is that I instantly looked and felt 10 years younger, having changed no other part of my life. Then I realized just for how long I'd sat on my ass and gulped quick meals on the go, and gone without proper sleep patterns.
If I'd had the additional misfortune of having litres of corn syrup shoved into me like americans, I might have never recovered.
Yeaaa Right(Stuntgirl). I believe all the food diatriabe, but the sleeping thing is a bit suspect? It takes one to know one.
My ass is out of bed at [1:30 a.m.] Eastern Standard time, every morning.( I live on the left coast) and Queensland Au., You aren't fooling anyone with your 'placid' remarks.
I respect the heck out of you for walking away though.
We have a staff services program that reimburses staff $299 per year for exercise related expenses. It woks pretty well. Also our staff do a 2 yearly fitness test. White collar workers have outdone blu for last 2 tests.
We get discounted gym memberships (which we can use whenever we want, including during the workday), and we have a great cafeteria with a huge menu of everything from completely healthy to not so healthy food. It all depends on the company, but good ones are out there...
GMO foods with 40% of the nutrition from your first bite require you to eat 2.5x more just to get what your craving. And lo and behold come the salt sugar and fat.
I think Government should lead the way first and prove it's doable.
Behold the Fed's balance sheet incarnate.
Health insurance costs should skyrocket for politicians now because they will be less likely to survive the revolution.
Just one more corporate mandate on the labor class. It has alot more to do with power and control and instilling fear than it does to any kind of health concern or direct correlation to unhealthiness.
This is a slippery slope, opening the door for control of a myriad of things.
I am glad I am old. I got so sick of hearing from the corporation I worked for that I was lucky to have a job.
you were lucky.
I got this email from my employer last week. Every has done this to get their $100 and I'm the only hold out. Something about all of this seems a bit fishy to me. So now theyre bribing us and it's strictly voluntary and totally confidential? So when will it be required and used against me? I wonder if there is something buried in obamacare that has caused this. The fact is my labs are quite good but I really feel uncomfortable doing this.
"As San Diego’s health care leader, our dedication to health and well-being begins with you, our employees. We care deeply about you and want you to feel your best for yourself, your family, the organization and the community we serve.
We launched our comprehensive Best Health wellness program to help support employees on their journey to better health. Building on that existing foundation, we’re introducing free health screenings to help give you important information about your current health and your risk of developing chronic health conditions.
We will use five health screenings: body mass index, random blood sugar, total cholesterol to HDL ratio, tobacco use and blood pressure. These areas were selected for measurement because of their significance in the development of chronic diseases and subsequent decreased quality of life, higher long-term health care costs and missed days at work.
Health screenings will begin on March 4.
Getting started is easy and rewarding
It only takes five to 10 minutes to complete the screenings, but their positive impact is long lasting. The results will give you an important baseline for your health and can help you identify areas to focus on going forward. Additionally, participants will receive $100 (taxable) after the initial screening, along with a Fitbit Zip wireless pedometer.
The free screenings can be performed at one of our screening events in early March or at one of many satellite screening locations throughout the system during March or April. Walk-ins may be possible, but appointments are strongly recommended. All results will remain strictly confidential*.
While the screenings are voluntary, I encourage all team members to participate. Improving overall health is indeed important to each of us and our loved ones on so many levels, and it is an important way for our organization to maintain a workforce that continues to make our hospital the best place to work, practice medicine and receive care."
*All screening results are completely confidential. They will not be recorded in employees’ personal records and will not be distributed to employees’ personal physicians.
Miffed;-)
It's never confidential. My wife has worked closely with HR and has had access to other employees files. She said she could look up anyone and find out all kinds of things.
The only people and organizations that are private are the U.S. government spy agencies.
what you can look up and what you can do about it legally are another question
"I encourage all team members to participate."
Thats another little diddy I've noticed over the last several years...this bleating from corporate of the word "team".
Apparently all the CEO's & board members fly off to the same business seminars, given by the same touchy-feely psycho babbling shrinks...around my office we've engaged in an over-top rendering which seems to go right over their little pin heads...such as...
Well done Team Member nmewn! Thank you Team Member Bob!
Great fun ;-)
a friend (state public employee) got caught off guard when new (young) md wanted a marijuana test. [friend would not pass said test friend revealed to me confidentally], so brushed the kid (md) off.
should friend fail the test, it would give employer (state) reasons to force friend into rehab, or retirement. friend is senior and ripe picking for cost cutting moves were friends employer (state) to learn the results of drug testing. [and where is doctor patient confidentiality?]
friend is not on employers health plan but spouses health plan. of course once you are denied [and i am pretty sure you can be denied coverage for lying on the your application, do you take any recreational drugs] once friend had been denied coverage by spouses HC how could friend possibly get coverage from own employers HC. or either way the HC will raise friends rates.
i doubt the HC would share info with state employer that would compromise friends position, but should information become known, even if legally being able to prove said info is not possible, becomes an invisible distinction. once they know friend is pot smoker they will move that name to head of the layoff early retirement list. no reason given.
an outsider must wonder if denying that you smoke, drink or use rec drugs leaves you open to denial of service (under obamacare) if you fail any of these tests, or leaves you open to much higher rates, like people with a bad driving record buy car insurance by the tranches, until they are effectively forced off the highway, but the health highway, well there's nowhere to go.
Employee-rights advocates say the penalties are akin to "legal discrimination." [...] "It means millions of people are getting their pay cut for no legitimate reason."
It is legal discrimination. For example, smokers pay more for insurance. The fact is fat people cost more. That is a legitimate reason.
Whether the government is involved has nothing to do with it. In a free market system, people with higher expected costs pay more. The good news is that unlike gender or age based pricing, fat people can change their situation.
I think healthcare insurance is now supposed to cover gender changes.
Yes, but the motivation is not about lowering premiums.
Pain is often the best motivator
30 years ago you did not see guys like that.
I blame these motorized scooters.
What about 110 years ago.. http://weknowmemes.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/obesity-in-america.jpg
I really see no issue here. The company's are doing the right thing. The whole direction of health insurance in the past thirty yearts has been in an absurd direction. OF COURSE it should make a difference in how much you pay, based on how healthy your habits are. Really, people, this is a no-brainer. I thought there was a libertarian bias at ZH? Here it makes sense!
Then raise the deductible, not the premium. That way you pay for what you use.
You're missing the point.
The real libertarian position is to REMOVE healthcare coverage from employment.
Not whether or not people should pay extra for healthcare.
Same applies to gay marriage...
They should talk to Samoan Airlines, who is surcharging passengers based on weight, and adjust health insurance along similiar lines;
Weigh more? Then pay more!
As former college wrestler , bodybuilder, football player who still works out weighs 230 but blood pressure 115/72 (I checked it last week in the hospital ) etc, this of course presents a bit of a problem. Oh well, such is the price of my vanity and narcicism.
I understand you probably have a fairly large body size due to lifestyle.
But I actually agree with airlines charging more to fat (or simply very large) passengers than standard size ones. In fact I believe such passengers should be seated in a section of the plane with more leg room and wider seats etc to accomodate their large body size. As a fairly recent passenger on a BA flight from BKK to LHR (13.5 hours flying time) I can say it really was no fun being seated next to a guy who was so large, he couldn't sit back in his seat and was overflowing my 'space' the whole journey. Eating food was virtually impossible for me. But this is a matter for airlines to grapple with and sort out, not government.
Smacker,
Samoa Air started charging passengers per lbs. It starts small then expands.
I've never flown with Samoa. But I guess charging passengers by weight is one way but it's a tad hit & miss.
OTOH, if they required all passengers to reveal their body circumference at the time of ticket purchase, that might also be seen as invasive.
It surely is not an easy issue to resolve, but one has to consider the fate of other passengers who struggle to sit in their seat due to oversized adjacent people.
Same issue here, Hubbs: I'm 48, 6'1", 225-230lb... but have a RHR of 56 and a VO2Max of 46 and BP of 118/75. Dips, bench, chins and HIIT, bitchez.
I live in a country where there's tax-funded public health (Australia) - 1.4% of wages. And I object to that shit MIGHTILY, since it penalises me for doing shit to stay healthy. It's been about 20 years since I went to a doctor (and that was to get some ephedrine to cut some fat for summer), and I have no plans to go in the next 20 years. So the tax-parasites get my hard-earned money to waste of obese-tards, smokers, and other fuck-knuckles who shit in their own nest.
Then again: as Cyprus showed us, the political parasites think that any money we manage to save after they rape our paypacket is theirs if they want it.
As an aside: BMI is the stupidest fucking metric ever invented - it was invented for fucking retards who have to have 'one number' on which everything has to hinge. A recent study showed that people with a LOW BMI had higher mortality than people with a BMI in the 25-30 range (even though it was a shitty meta-analysis - the analysis you do when you can't fund a decent study - I'm going to use it because it buttresses my prejudices).
Wow, a big 1.4%. In the so-called "free market" capitalist health care system of US you pay and pay and pay for absolutely nothing. They take out $200 a month for medical bennies at work and I never go to the doctor either. I can't afford to because the only thing that is covered 100% is one annual check up. Anything else is only covered by a percentage AFTER you reach the deductible, which is about $3000....LOL.
You're better off with the 1.4%. Even if you only make $2000 a month, that is only about $30 a month. Plus, if you get hit by a car and end up in hospital you're not going to get hit up for $3000 out of pocket before the benefits kick in (at which time they will only cover 80%). My healthcare plan if fairly common in the great land of the free and home of "free-market".
Oh, and did I mention that U.S. citizens are being taxed overall by a lot higher amount here in the Capitalist capital of the world? By time you pay Federal, State, FICA, and any healthcare insurance, as well as car insurance, you have about have your paycheck wiped out.
On the surface it looks reasonable. But the reason this does not get my vote is because they waited until the Government started forcing insurance on everyone...and now since they got everyone by the throat they are going to enforce their rules; this is just the start. Yet, the food has been largely poisoned with chemicals, GMO, cow hormones, and other choice ingredients which are making humans sick and most likely FATTER! As soon as China opened its doors to Western food (al la gmo carte) they started having an obesity problem.
Let's get the insurance companies out of this, rid the planet of GMO, fake food (like mcdonalds) and pesticides and then we can talk about Healthy living. As it is we're all playing roulette with cancer.
"Yet, the food has been largely poisoned with chemicals, GMO, cow hormones, and other choice ingredients which are making humans sick and most likely FATTER!"
I'm not fat.
Pretty soon they'll want to know what diseases you are genetically prone to, so they will then call for dna samples, and your entire healthcare plan will be "managed" and costs determined by DNA. You can see where this is all going. It starts with the fat guy, or the smoker, or the guy with the small arsenal......
Yeah but we get free condoms on Oblowhardcare!
Oh course free condoms are no use to the obese because no one wants to fuck a fattie.
The guy in the photo wouldn't be able to get it up with all that weight pushing it all down.
Maybe a compassionate surgion will come along and operate to remove all that excess fat. Just slice it off and sew it up.
yea, but did you catch the cool slippers?
The people I have worked with that spent the most health care dollars were the ones who were raising families--pregancy/birth costs then the kids constantly at the doctor. Not to mention getting their co-workers sick when they caught their kiddie's latest cold, but had no sick time left to stay home. The old fat people, if they had any health problems at all, usually just dropped dead of a heart attack with mimimal associated costs.
The fat fuck used as the title shot for this post must have an incredibly strong 'posterior chain' (calves, hamstrings, glutes, lower back) - motherfucker has to deadlift a 250lb gut with every step he takes.
Jokes aside though - what is it about some folks, that they never get to the point where they think "Man, I'm getting to be one fat fuck. Maybe I ought to drop from 8000 cal/day of sugary shit and no exercise to say 5000 cal/day of something else." It can't just be a lack of mirrors, surely?
Don't get me wrong - this is not me feeling the slightest scintilla of sympathy for jackasses who eat themselves to death. I'm just curious - like I'm curious how Hitler went from homeless rent-boy to Reichschancellor in a little under a decade.
And of course the moment .gov claims that it has a role to play in furnishing a solution, Goldman execs rub their hands together and open up the webpage to order another gold plated Learjet paid for by diverted "this is for your own good" .gov waste.
At least in the old days, if a person smoked, drank, was obese or did drugs, we had the option of dying without it costing anyone a cent.
Now we got to pay. Hell, you can even commit legal suicide anymore by smoking two packs a day without .gov charging for health insurance and I thought sin taxes were supposed to have taken care of it.
So where are sin taxes going to, Cartegana hookers?
PA drinkers still pay an 18% tax on liquor to help restore the flooded town of Johnstown.. it was restored back in the 40's but no matter.. the tax lives on
http://johnstownfloodtax.com/
Citizenizim is not just a theory any more.
It was only a matter of time. This kind of "discrimination" has been going on for years in the "Life insurance" industry. I think it's a good thing---pay to play biznatches!
Insurance is socialized risk and the way things work only the producers pay premiums. Employees and the self employed are the producers. Government employees usually are not producing anything of value. In the end it is just another tax to redistribute income.
I reread what you wrote 3 times, and I have no idea of the point you are trying to make. I must be the dunce.
Breaking News:
Bundesbank Plans Deposit Haircuts For Bank Customers
President of the Bundesbank will announce plans for deposit haircuts for bank customers in case a financiel institution goes bankrupt.
will be announced today at 11 CET
full text
http://homment.com/bundesbank-deposit-haircuts
More than likely obesity is a choice, I sat on my fat ass and played video games for a year and got obese, by choice. Re-located, started exercising again, eating just eggs for a month or two, and a physically demanding job, lost 67lbs in a couple of months.
But also, some people can't help it if they have a medical condition and also many medications can cause this and other adverse effects on your body.
I believe companies have a right to discriminate and hire whom they desire, but gov comes in and screws everything up.
Except that you presume that the employer can do no wrong and that the employee can do no right.
Fuck all this. I will turn 60 in December, have smoked like a madman since I was 16 and still beat people half my age at tennis, which I've played since I was five.
I work out four times a week - alternating aerobics and weight-training - my favorite activity being the rowing machine. I garden extensively which also keeps me in shape and I eat almost no yeast products (except for liquor).
Mind you, I wasn't always this way. About two years ago I discovered thecandidadiet.com and lost 50 pounds in six months and have kept it off.
Bad diet and lack of exercise will kill you a lot quicker than smoking. BTW: I roll my own with natural tobacco and no filters or additives and now I grow much of my own tobacco.
All the anti-tobacco crap is BS. It's what the big tobacco companies put into them that kills you (over 400 additives).
I reject all forms of health care. Have been to a doctor twice in the last 20 years, don't pay for "insurance."
My father used to ask me what I'd do if I found out I had cancer. I told him I'd die.
WTF? We all need to die from something; might as well enjoy yourself along the way.
I was going to down vote you until I got to the part where you grow and use your own tobacco. My husband has been severely allergic to cigarette smoke for years. We couldn't go out to restaurants because his face would swell up terribly and couldnt breath if any cigarette smoke was near him. Cali passed a no smoking in restaurants which was a godsend for us. In the early 2000s he has to go to Paris on business and we were just panicked about what would happen. There were going to be several dinners he had to attend and we knew he was going to be exposed to lots of cig smoke. We had several meds his dr gave him to hopefully get him through it. We got there a few days early just to see how bad it was going to be. There was so much smoke in some cafes it was like a cloud. the funny thing was my husband had NO reaction whatsoever! He didn't have to use any meds to get through the entire 10 day trip! This completely changes our minds about cigarettes, not that we have any desire to smoke. We looked up the lung cancer rates in France and they were lower than the USA even though the smoking rate was greater! You have a point about the additives and I think you're right.
If you are worried about cancer, there is a lot you can do nutritionally that can offset a lot of risk. Make sure your vit D is greater than 55 ( vit d regulates cell death, cancer is an over proliferation of cells). I take 2000iu a day with vitamin k2. Consider vegetable juicing and taking probiotics. So much research being done on health and colon bacteria showing a connection! I have few " bad " habits that I'm unwilling to give up too! I try to do everything in moderation but I'm kind of a hedonist at heart. There is something to be said for just living a happy life and not stressing about shit.
Good luck and be well.
Miffed;-)
Obesity in the first world is caused by food suppliers substituting cheap to manufacture, high profit margin "food" for the real thing. In keeping with supply side economic theory, these foods are heavily subsidized by government and foisted on a population softened up by years of social conditioning... to the point that most people wouldn't know good food if it came up and bit them.
For a complete understanding of the issues, read "Wheat Belly", "the Paleo Solution".. there are other sources.
For a complete 10 minute body workout try a vibrator plate machine like this one:
http://www.amazon.com/Confidence-Vibration-Platform-Fitness-Machine/dp/B...
Incidentally, all the incentives for the insurance, health care and pharma industries are such that they have no interest in you becoming healthy, thus impairing their profits.
How is the profit of an insurance company impaired by a lack of claims?
Insurance companies profit depends on the reinvestment of premiums, which in turn are calculated as by the total claims paid out. The healthier the population, the fewer aggregate claims, the lower the premiums (in a theoretically competitive underwriting environment) and the less the profit. Consider the impact of on the insurance industry if lifestyle illness conditions like most diabetes and AIDS were actually eliminated.
Where does "supply-side" economic theory call for subsudies?
There is a hint in the term "supply side".
Not a complete definition but a serviceable one:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supply-side_economics
I don't see how you're getting "wealth taxation" from this. What they're seeking to do is to remove the moral hazard from people's health-care; incentivizing them to help keep their own health costs down.
Previously, this has been done with having the consumer share in the immediate costs of the care (with co-pays and deductibles), but that mostly incentivizes them to minimize costs on a *per-visit* basis (by shopping around, or maybe even by not going to a doctor at all unless illnesses get really bad), and, even then, the incentives don't work all that well.
"Fat taxes" introduce an incentive to take more over-arching actions, those which promise to lower the health-care cost of an individual across-the-board.
I would think that, being the champion of free-markets that you seem to be, you'd be in favor of something which removes moral hazard, but... maybe it's because you're such a free-marketer that you want to see collectively-bargained health-care coverage get thrown into the wastebin, entirely.
As for me, the only issue *I* have with it is that there are items on the list which a consumer doesn't really have much control over. Weight? Yes. Cholesterol? Um, okay... but different people's bodies have different baseline levels. Blood glucose? My understanding is that this is determined by how well their pancreas is functioning, and less by their current sugar intake. So, you'd be penalizing them for already having diabetes... which is *really* dinging them for a pre-existing condition.
Check Krispy Kreme Calendar for this year
http://www.angelfire.com/ak2/intelligencerreport/krispy_kreme13.html
Turn them into a protected class.