I don’t know Bill, this one is only going to cause you lot’s of trouble without making much of a point. And this after an evening of getting your ass handed to you by Al Franken, Gavin Newsom, and Penn Jillette.
Fat is not what is causing our healthcare problem, it is old.
I just spent 8 nights on a 4′ couch in a big Old People’s home where my 97 year old Mother passed away. Sure I felt young, but when you are totally immersed in nothing but walkers, Rascals, wheelchairs and sad slow moving people it wakes you up to the real problem in healthcare. Longevity beyond our personal and governmental ability to pay for it.
The cost of it, Medicare and Medicaid aside, is staggering. If you are middle class and have to pay your own way these are the costs:
Assisted Living – $6000 a month or $72,000 a year.
Skilled Nursing – $12,000 a month or $148,000 a year.
In home round the clock Hospice – $5000 a week or $225,000 a year.
Add any one of those up for a 97 year old who gradually moves from one, to the next, to the next.
The costs are even higher when the government pays.
The longer we live the more we lose everything we worked for and saved, any inheritance for kids is eaten up until everything is gone and we move to Medicaid, where as we get older the care gets worse and more expensive.
And what with Global Warming ice flows are hard to find these days.
So the only answer, as the rest of the civilized world has found and done, is with a payroll mandate paid by everyone to cover everyone. There is no other way of paying for it. With better outcomes for less money.
Socialism in the defense of Health care is no vice.