I'm looking for some peer reviewed studies that discuss the pros and cons for providing

[midnight]

medicare for people who get sick via their "lifestyle". An example that was given.... Why should our govt. pay for someone who eats candy bars and then ends up with diabetes. My first response was Ayn Rand. Her mythical idea that govt. shouldn't take care of you. But when she got sick-the govt. had to take care of her... All because of her life style choice... But I need good paper work that has been reviewed... Thanks..

[mucifer]

1. try scolar.google.com it a good way to find research studies.

[midnight]

5. Thanks for the link....

[NRaleighLiberal]

2. I don't know of any research like that, but a few points came to mind....

I know very few people who don't have some sort of lifestyle vice - be it candy, alcohol, cigarettes - we are human, we are endlessly advertised at. That's one problem with excluding people - which vice do we exclude?

Next - we all know how sketchy cause and effect information is on vices vs health issues...there is too much we don't know about personal genetics, interactions of different vices, negating a bad effect by doing something good, etc.

If we go down a road of limiting coverage due to a lifestyle vice....well, I just don't think we can go there.

[midnight]

3. Without thinking of the good points you make about personal genetics

etc... I think there is discussing starting on this very topic... and we need to be aware that some see health care as a business....

[KT2000]

4. Lifestyle blame is false

unless all contributors to illness are given weight. An example of this would be the town next to mine. They had a filthy paper mill running for decades. They were excused from following some environmental laws in order to keep the jobs.
At one point, some of the local doctors could not stay quiet and requested a health study of the children in the town. Respiratory illnesses in children there were common. Lots of children has asthma and some of them did not have health insurance or access to appropriate care. Some of the children were set up for lifetime respiratory problems. Some of the children were on Medicaid.
Sure enough the study proved that the health of the children in the community was bad, especially with respiratory illnesses.
The mill did not provide medical care or pay the costs for anyone injured by their emissions - least of all the children.
When the community was faced with the results of the study, the vocal majority wanted to keep the mill in operation and let things carry on a usual.

This sort of thing is repeated in communities all over this country.
Until polluters are held responsible for their contribution to ill health, how could it make sense to blame individuals for their lifestyle.
Since you used diabetes - there are chemicals that can cause diabetes, including dioxin.

[midnight]

6. Good info. I didn't know dioxin caused diabetes.... Don't really know

what that drug is... I'll have to look that up... I wish this experience of the town next door was published, it would be an interesting piece of information to use...

[KT2000]

8. For your own

information, here is a website where you can access a database, enter the name of a chemical and see what health effects are associated with exposure to that chemical.
http://www.healthandenvironment.org

Dioxin is the chemical that is found in Agent Orange. It is also produced as a byproduct of certain manufacturing such as paper mills. Very bad stuff. The EPA has been working on regulation of dioxin for 27 years. Industrie do not want them to complete it.

[lumberjack_jeff]

7. Did you know that if everyone quit smoking, health care costs would rise?

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM199710093371506

Everyone's looking for a scapegoat.

[KT2000]

9. I figured that out

when I started visiting an elderly friend in the nursing home. Some elderly people live years and years in delapidated state because they lived so healthy. No thanks!

[meaculpa2011]

12. Healthy lifestyle choices lead to...

the compression of morbidity, which means lower health care costs. The contemporary American lifestyle results in the expansion of morbidity, i.e. longer lifespans due to advances in medical technology, accompanied by decades of slow, steady degeneration.

Eat well, exercise daily, limit alcohol and eliminate tobacco!

You won't live any longer, but you'll live better without spending your last twenty years slowly falling apart at the seams and breathing through a tube.

[TheWraith]

10. You say that, it reminds me of a trip to paper-making territory in Maine.

There were once three paper mills in the area, but only one operated then. When we went down for the day to shop in the town with the active mill, you could smell a constant nasty fog in the air. I couldn't imagine how people lived with it, but they did.

[surrealAmerican]

11. People don't need financial disincentives for unhealthy habits ...

... and it's inhumane to insist on blaming those who are suffering.

If it's all about the cost to taxpayers, think about how incredibly wasteful it is to try to assign blame for every illness or injury. Not to mention the fact that it's frequently impossible, and statistically there are bound to be errors that will cost people their lives.