Harrumph File #077 07.17.2011_Hey, Hey, Hey, It’s Fat Albert!

     So, the know-it-all “nanny” police, who obviously know more than you & I about every detail of our own lives, are at it again.  Fat kids are to be taken away from their parents and sent into foster care.  The reason given is that, just as if a child was malnourished, allowing a kid to get fat is just as “neglectful” and dangerous to the kid.  Therefore, the parent is not taking the best interests of the child into account, and the child would, obviously, best be raised by… the village. 

     Well, this is pretty obvious, you say.  If a parent is not putting the child’s interests first and allowing the kid to be put in harm’s way, the child would be best served by being removed from said environment.  We don’t want our children to suffer from things like diabetes and heart disease, do we?  Well, as parents, we do want what is best for our kids.  We want them to grow up healthy and happy.  However, be careful of the “slippery slope” being created by the know-it-all state before YOU end up on the receiving end of a notice from Child Protective Services.  What?  How can this be, you ask?  They surely won’t take my kids away from me, you say!  After all, you opine, my kids aren’t fat or malnourished.  Well, maybe not, but just think about something.  After confiscating all the fat kids, who will they focus on next for state protection?

     According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, each year U.S. emergency departments treat an estimated 135,000 children ages 5 to 18 for sports-related brain injuries.  Yes, all your little football players running around out there stand the risk of life-altering brain injuries or even death from the simple act of plowing into other little football players on the field.  Or perhaps that 30 inch baseball bat your kid’s swinging over the plate will break and shards of white ash will go through the infield like grapeshot from a pirate’s cannon.  No, we can’t have our children’s health risked by these “dangerous” activities.

     How about kids that participate in motocross racing or white water rafting?  What about round-the-world sailing, wood working, lawn mowing, javelin throwing, walking to or from school? All of these things are potentially life threatening.  If your children participate in any of these activities, and many more too numerous to list, perhaps you too are negligent.  And finally, what about driving a car?  Kids normally get their license around 16.  We tell them to be careful.  We tell them not to text and drive.  We tell them not to speed.  And then we put them in a 2000 pound death machine that can travel at speeds over a hundred miles per hour and give them the keys.  How is that different from giving them a cheeseburger & fries?

     You see, what this really comes down to is money.  Specifically, health care costs.  And the public is looking for someone to blame for spiraling health care costs.  Well, we can’t blame the football players for running up emergency bills because, well, they’re just playing a game and you know, getting outside & playing is good for you.  Besides, it’s “all-American” and such!    We can’t blame the round-the-world sailors because they’re just trying to set new records.  We can’t blame teen drivers because if you raised the licensing age to 21 or even 18 people would have conniption fits and talk about their rights being denied, blah, blah.  So, we only have one group left to blame, fat people.  You eat a lot, you get fat, you have health problems.  It’s your fault health care is so expensive.  You see, fat people are the last group that aren’t “protected” under the constitution.  You can make jokes about them.  You can laugh at them for falling down on dancing shows.  You can blame them for everything.  It’s “open season” on fat people because you’re all afraid to make jokes about anyone else.  You can’t “hate” any other groups, but it’s still ok to “hate” fat people.

Stand before the man and receive your number!

     Well, as a friend of mine from back in the ‘hood used to say, “Homey don’t play that.”  Health care costs can’t be traced to one particular group or segment of society.  And, as I usually do, I am offering a solution to our high health care costs.  In order to fix the problem we have to look at the totality of it.  In order to see the totality of the problem we have to look at individuals… every individual.

     I propose that we form a special government board (because we all know that only the government does everything right and fair,) and this board will be responsible for assigning each U. S. resident a number (see, I’m even including “illegals,” how magnanimous of me!)  This is your health number.  Every single thing you participate in will be assigned a “risk” factor.  The totality of your risk factors will determine your health number, which will dictate what portion of your health care costs you are responsible to pay.  And don’t even think about lying to your case worker.  Forget to mention that you like to indulge in a little surfing when you get out to the islands and you’ll be on the receiving end of “capital justice,” ChiCom style with a single shot to the head.  Hey, drastic times call for drastic measures!  We’ll use a simple scale of 100 with 100 representing you having to pay everything and zero giving you a complete free ride (since you don’t participate in “dangerous” activities.)

     For example, if you are a fat guy, a risk factor of between 5-20 will be assigned to your health number.  The amount assigned will be determined by how much excess weight you carry.  Pretty simple, right?  But wait, let’s also assign other risk factors to you.  Do you play football?  Add 3 risk factor points to your health number.  Round-the-world sailor?  Add 8.  Do you own an exotic pet like a chimpanzee?  A chimp is gonna cost you 7 points.  Too much you say?  Well, just be glad you didn’t buy that cobra you were thinking about…25 points.  Heck, even a pit bull runs 2 points.  Skydive for fun?  Add 5.  Race cars for a living?  That’s another 16.  Like to go for a bike ride every now and then?  It’s a point for every 25 miles you ride in a year.  Oh, and if you like to ride in a densely populated city (as determined by yet another government panel,) it’s triple points.  Enjoy a night out on the town with a glass of wine or a beer for an additional point per six-pack or bottle you consume per year.  And, if you get lucky, “wink, wink,” that’ll cost you 20 points per partner over the first in a year… half points if you use condoms.

            I could go on, but I think you get the picture.  You see, our lives are an amalgamation of risk factors.  You may not be fat but if you jump out of an airplane for fun and that one time out of a thousand you’re the guy who kisses the ground too hard, your corpse is still going to run up an emergency bill on par with the fat guy’s stent surgery.  And while they try to breath some life back into your fractured husk of a body and are adding up the hospital bill I’ll go ahead and have that Whopper & fries you passed on before you got on that plane.  Harrumph…