According to this study, smoking costs our economy ~0.88% of our GDP. That works out to in the ballpark of $600 per capita. Would you change your opinion if you had $600 sitting in front of you? I disagree that it’s a slippery slope, anti-vax, smokers, and overeaters cost a lot of money, and the rest of us foot the bill.
You might as well argue that healthy people are a drag since care in old age is so expensive.
See, I’m German. We have a solidarity based health insurance (mostly). I’m a young, reasonably healthy guy with a reasonably high income. All in all I pay 840€ every month (that’s the maximum amount), even though I cost next to nothing. And I’m okay with that.
Yes, smoking is bad and I don’t like smokers. But denying them healthcare is deeply deeply inhumane. And in Germany even unconstitutional.
One of my children is not vaccinated against measles. In addition, although she is vaccinated against whooping cough, she in fact has had whooping cough. I talk about it a lot. You see my child has a compromised immune system and the measles vaccine is a live vaccine so giving her that vaccine could in fact kill her. And the dead vaccines are not terribly effective for her. The end result is I am very pro-vaccine because I rely on other people’s vaccines to keep my child safe. But when a policy is put in place to deny those who are not vaccinated, it affects children like mine who simply can’t be vaccinated. You can say well, those with medical exemptions can still get treatment. Except as soon as there’s a medical exemption, all the anti-vaccine people jump in and claim a medical exemption, and then no one believes medical exemptions and children like mine are at risk. Even worse, some doctors may refuse to give medical exemptions thinking that everybody is lying in order to get an exemption.
Children do not choose whether or not to be vaccinated. So are you not going to treat an innocent 2-year-old because their parents are idiots? Do we put toddlers to death for the sins of their parents?
What about a family who can’t vaccinate their 2-year-old because the grandmother lives with them and is immunocompromised once again measles is a live vaccine and you are not supposed to have it if anyone in the house is immunocompromised. So the child certainly can receive the vaccine and would not qualify for an exemption but it would endanger another person in the family.
The question is where do we draw the line? Who do we let die for poor choices? Just those who make the choices? Or their family members? What do we consider a poor choice? Is not vaccinating your child if it could kill your parent a poor choice? It’s a hard choice, but is it a poor choice? I’d rather not play God and have absolutes.
I would love to see vaccine mandates put in place with all children required to get a vaccine unless a doctor says otherwise and leave that on the doctor’s shoulders to make medical decisions. What I would not like to see is life and death decisions made based on our judgment call of whether someone is smart, or has made smart choices.
That’s unfortunately an extremely slippery slope.
If vaccines (or lack thereof) are enough to refuse “service”, why treat lung cancer in smokers? What about type 2 diabetes?
Sure, those too. They can sue big tobacco and big sugar for the money to pay for those treatments.
According to this study, smoking costs our economy ~0.88% of our GDP. That works out to in the ballpark of $600 per capita. Would you change your opinion if you had $600 sitting in front of you? I disagree that it’s a slippery slope, anti-vax, smokers, and overeaters cost a lot of money, and the rest of us foot the bill.
You might as well argue that healthy people are a drag since care in old age is so expensive.
See, I’m German. We have a solidarity based health insurance (mostly). I’m a young, reasonably healthy guy with a reasonably high income. All in all I pay 840€ every month (that’s the maximum amount), even though I cost next to nothing. And I’m okay with that.
Yes, smoking is bad and I don’t like smokers. But denying them healthcare is deeply deeply inhumane. And in Germany even unconstitutional.
One of my children is not vaccinated against measles. In addition, although she is vaccinated against whooping cough, she in fact has had whooping cough. I talk about it a lot. You see my child has a compromised immune system and the measles vaccine is a live vaccine so giving her that vaccine could in fact kill her. And the dead vaccines are not terribly effective for her. The end result is I am very pro-vaccine because I rely on other people’s vaccines to keep my child safe. But when a policy is put in place to deny those who are not vaccinated, it affects children like mine who simply can’t be vaccinated. You can say well, those with medical exemptions can still get treatment. Except as soon as there’s a medical exemption, all the anti-vaccine people jump in and claim a medical exemption, and then no one believes medical exemptions and children like mine are at risk. Even worse, some doctors may refuse to give medical exemptions thinking that everybody is lying in order to get an exemption.
Children do not choose whether or not to be vaccinated. So are you not going to treat an innocent 2-year-old because their parents are idiots? Do we put toddlers to death for the sins of their parents?
What about a family who can’t vaccinate their 2-year-old because the grandmother lives with them and is immunocompromised once again measles is a live vaccine and you are not supposed to have it if anyone in the house is immunocompromised. So the child certainly can receive the vaccine and would not qualify for an exemption but it would endanger another person in the family.
The question is where do we draw the line? Who do we let die for poor choices? Just those who make the choices? Or their family members? What do we consider a poor choice? Is not vaccinating your child if it could kill your parent a poor choice? It’s a hard choice, but is it a poor choice? I’d rather not play God and have absolutes.
I would love to see vaccine mandates put in place with all children required to get a vaccine unless a doctor says otherwise and leave that on the doctor’s shoulders to make medical decisions. What I would not like to see is life and death decisions made based on our judgment call of whether someone is smart, or has made smart choices.