What scientists call "Overweight" changes with our knowledge of human health (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
This is an interesting article published by the Telegraph Travel.
‘Fat tax’ for overweight fliers welcomed by majority of men – Telegraph.
Personally, I would vote “yes”.
The article misses a much wider story about the huge cost of fat people to the over-stressed healthcare system.
The second question is:
“Would you support fat people paying higher taxes for their healthcare?
Related articles
- ‘Fat tax’ for overweight fliers welcomed by majority of men (telegraph.co.uk)
- ‘Fat tax’ on airline passengers could follow travel giants’ legal victory over disabled fliers, claims leading barrister (dailymail.co.uk)
- UK court ruling paves way for airline ‘fat tax’ for obese (foxnews.com)
- Denmark imposes fat tax (dontmesswithtaxes.typepad.com)
- Overweight people should pay ‘fat tax’ to cover healthcare costs, German MP says (telegraph.co.uk)
- Fat Taxes in the European Union (taxprof.typepad.com)
A fat tax for overweight passengers who take up two seats is long overdue and should apply to trains, buses and trams as well.
The broader issue of variable taxes on food was broached by David Cameron who said he liked the idea of a Danish style “fat tax” but as he does with anything really difficult or tough to sell he caved in to those who said it would “penalise the poor” and those pensioners without access to a car(this somehow precludes them from being able to shop at a decent supermarket, prevents them from cooking and prevents them from buying vitamins).
The facts and the costs all point to the need to take firm action but as usual the Government goes through its “Three wise monkeys” routine and gets fixated about gay marriage and cohabiting heterosexual couples, no fault divorce, Lords Reform and other irrelevancies.
THE COSTS
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Each ambulance now has to be strengthened at a cost of £135,000 gbp and each stretcher strengthened at a cost of £90,000 gbp.
Each hospital floor costs a further £3 million gbp to strengthen and each grossly overweight person requires more nurses, more drugs and more attention from doctors who might otherwise be looking after the genuinely sick and afflicted.
THE LINK WITH ADULT SOCIAL CARE/ADDITIONAL COSTS
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The NHS budget is run through Central Government whereas Adult Social Care is dealt with by county councils, Mid County Councils and Unitary authorities.
Because of this separation the true cost of obesity is hidden and most people do not know that the morbidly obese go on to become Adult Social Care recipients who between them consume 50% or more of county council budgets and as much as 55% in Cambridgeshire.
THE FIRST GENERATION OF CHILDREN LIKELY TO PREDECEASE THEIR PARENTS
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We already have the fattest woman in Western Europe and the fourth fattest men with the men moving rapidly towards a position where they will catch up with the woman.
Children are computer/Facebook fixated sloths and on present form they will die ahead of their parents.
This is catastrophic because not enough taxpayers will be left to care for these people in old age.
THE EATING HABITS OF C1′s,C2′s,D’s and E’s
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A trip to a local fish and chip shop anywhere in the country on five to seven consecutive nights reveals that the same people devour this sort of food night after night washed down with pepsicola and other carbonated soft drinks.
Often on the 7th night or once a fortnight if they are in receipt of dole or incapacity benefit they will order an Indian takeaway plus huge quantities of supermarket lager.
This is because they are by and large too idle to shop for ingredients, cook or even warm up food in a microwave.
As a result of this and overexposure to the chemicals in plastic drinks bottles, plastic chip forks and plactic cups they balloon to the point where they could be mistaken for the RIOI barrage balloon.
WHAT WILL DAVID CAMERON DO?
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On past form, I would say nothing, because it will fall to his successor or others to deal with this problem which has not yet penetrated the British psyche because it’s true extent is hidden.