Medical Fascism

[Selena_Kitt]

Employees fired and fined for smoking, obesity and blood test results


This is so wrong, I don't even know where to begin.

It amounts to medical fascism.

Scary stuff.



"Soylent Green is people!!!"

 

[scheherazade_79]

I read this as "Medical Fascination" and my ears pricked up

Makes you wonder about your own freedom when you live in a state where you're treated like a commodity, who must be kept healthy at all times to ensure maximum work output.

 

[neonlyte]

We had a company in England that had a policy of employing disabled people at their checkouts. The company changed hands about a year ago and virtually all of the disabled employees have vanished. Just maybe... they were all too sick to carry on working

 

[oggbashan]

Some local companies placed recruitment adverts asking for potential employees to be non-smokers or former smokers who had ceased at least ten years earlier.

Their justification? They were in the pharmaceutical industry and marketing stop-smoking kits was a major line. They considered that any of their employees seen smoking, even off-duty, would reflect badly on their product.

Someone objected. The advertisements were changed. Their policy wasn't.

Og

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

SELENA

The company I work for employs a lot of fatties. We're not talking Pleasantly Plump, we're talking 400 pounds and more, to love. Human Haystacks. They do their work. BUT our health insurance is unaffordable.

I'm guessing the employee's share of health insurance equals what many of these people earn. Consequently, many employees op-out...which makes things worse for those who have the insurance.

The crisis is coming.

The hordes of fatties and chronically sick will force government to make everyone pay for insurance (Hillary's Plan), and when much of your paycheck goes to pay for health insurance you'll scream bloody murder at the fatties and disabled.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

OGG

We're quickly reaching the time when only the obese and disabled have insurance. The fit and well cant and wont carry the load for the others.

Looking down the road I see draconian rules coming our way. I see heavy taxes on all foods containing sugar and fat. Fat kids will be segregated in Physical Conditioning programs at school, like dummies and wackos are. Married parents will get incentives to stay married, and single parents will get penalties. Etc.

 

[gauchecritic]

OGG

I see heavy taxes on all foods containing sugar and fat.

Then that's all food. If it doesn't contain sugar or fat (fat is sugar) then it's unuseable.

 

[rgraham666]

Shrugs. A society as obsessed with physical perfection as ours is bound to become more than a little neurotic about it.

Anyway this policy has been in place for years where the mentally ill are concerned. If you go off the deep end you don't get thrown a life preserver, you get thrown a heavy rock.

ETA. I started reading the comments. Brrrr. I found it sad how many people thought it was a wonderful idea.

Isn't it sad? How many people don't care as long as it's not their nuts in the vise?

 

[gauchecritic]

and no mention whatsoever of the insurance companies' steadily rising grotesque profits.

 

[neonlyte]

and no mention whatsoever of the insurance companies' steadily rising grotesque profits.

That's because the 'dysfunctional' either by labelling (fat, smoker, old) or choice (self employed, porn writers) rarely get to deal with insurance companies.

My motor insurer recently declined to insure my wife for driving another vehicle (our daughters) under our insurance policy because my wife is now a student having returned to academia to gain her PhD. Student's can't be trusted to behave responsibly

Yes... we switched insurer.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

and no mention whatsoever of the insurance companies' steadily rising grotesque profits.

From Yahoo Finance:
"Health Care Plans" industry, Net Profit Margin: 5.20 percent.

Comparisons: Diversified utilities are 8.10 percent, electric utilities 6.60 percent, oil and gas 10.0, movie theaters 7.2, etc.

There's no free lunch. "Make jobs, not money" is not a workable economic philosophy.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

ROXANNE

Youre correct about the MAKE JOBS, NOT MONEY mindset.

I think it was Walter Williams who went to China to observe some of their industries. At one site equipment sat idle while countless coolies used shovels and baskets to move dirt. Williams asked his guide why they werent using the heavy machinery, and the answer he got was "More jobs this way."

Williams then suggested they give the workers spoons and cups, and they could employ the whole country on one site.

 

[jomar]

Always about money, isn't it. Great companies take care of employees, but I can see why a company would do this. Trouble is it's a very slippery slope. I mean, penalties because a spouse smokes?

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

JOMAR

It's always about money. Dollar bills are certificates of worth & value.

The trouble is, the Rubes like Crack & Circuses. They'll spend every nickle they have to be entertained. So Americans value performers and celebrities, and anyone dum enough to work is a fool deserving of contempt and starvation wages.

 

[gauchecritic]

JOMAR

Dollar bills are certificates of worth & value.

Didn't you read this the last time I stated it as fact? Money has no intrinsic value. Neither does it certify anything at all.

ETA This answer also applies to Roxleby's facts and figurative posting.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

GMAN

I cant read. And I'm the dummest guy in the room.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

Didn't you read this the last time I stated it as fact? Money has no intrinsic value. Neither does it certify anything at all.

ETA This answer also applies to Roxleby's facts and figurative posting.

However, a box of chocolates does have intrinsic value, right?

Good - let's make a swap:

I'm sending you a really nice box of chocolates and a stamped, self-addressed envelope. Please enjoy the candy, and in return, stuff send back all of the value-less pieces of paper of this type to which you have a claim. Such a deal!

 

[rgraham666]

So Roxanne, does that mean if we got rid of jobs, we'd have more money?

I'll tell you a little story, about money and its 'intrinsic' worth.

About thirty years ago I was discussing just this subject with an acquaintance. He believed money had 'intrinsic worth'.

A few days later I encountered him, pulled a piece of money out of my wallet and asked him, "What is this?"

He replied, "It's a 5,000 Deutschmark note."

"That's right," I replied. Whereupon I pulled out my lighter and set fire to it.

Well, he just about plotzed. He thought I'd just burned about $10,000 in Canadian money.

However, the note had been issued by the Weimar Republic. It was worth only the fifty cents I had spent to purchase it at a junk shop.

He was not amused.

 

[gauchecritic]

However, a box of chocolates does have intrinsic value, right?

Good - let's make a swap:

I'm sending you a really nice box of chocolates and a stamped, self-addressed envelope. Please enjoy the candy, and in return, stuff send back all of the value-less pieces of paper of this type to which you have a claim. Such a deal!

Don't play to the claques Roxleby.

I need beer and cigarettes, I've bartered hours of my muscle, skill and experience for those. Your barter doesn't interest me.

Oh look! economics in action, and not a drop of value has attached to the money at all.

 

[xssve]

In the Nav we had guys below 10% bodyfat who nevertheless violated the rules based on height-weight charts.

 

[glynndah]

There was a story similar to the original poster's thought on NPR this week. The company they sited, a hospital in Indiana, I believe, backed down and is no longer pursuing this policy.

 

[Stella_Omega]

From Yahoo Finance:
"Health Care Plans" industry, Net Profit Margin: 5.20 percent.

Comparisons: Diversified utilities are 8.10 percent, electric utilities 6.60 percent, oil and gas 10.0, movie theaters 7.2, etc.

There's no free lunch. "Make jobs, not money" is not a workable economic philosophy.

The scrumptious salaries that health care upper management are getting are obviously being counted as losses.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

STELLA OMEGA

As the great Western philosopher Clint Eastwood said "Yes, its your neck in the noose, but I'm the one doing the shooting, and if we start reducing my share of the money, why! its likely to affect my aim."

 

[Huckleman2000]

[snip]
Anyway this policy has been in place for years where the mentally ill are concerned. If you go off the deep end you don't get thrown a life preserver, you get thrown a heavy rock.[snip]

Indeed.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

Don't play to the claques Roxleby.

I need beer and cigarettes, I've bartered hours of my muscle, skill and experience for those. Your barter doesn't interest me.

Oh look! economics in action, and not a drop of value has attached to the money at all.

I can't help it if the devastatingly effective response also happens to play to the claques. (Claques?)

Really now, Gauche - primitive barter? What if the skill or quality I want to trade isn't a strong back?

"Will write HTML code for food."
"Will produce balance sheets and cost flow analyses for beer and cigs."
"Will teach intermediate chemistry for clean reagents."
"Will babysit your kids for good dope."

Nah, I just can't see it . . .