Should health clubs be free?

[Narz]

If I make the right choices, with good information, I can eat fatty foods, do exercise and not need exercise counselling.
When I am charged, through tax, for things that help encourage idiots who can't make the right choices despite having good information to choose the healthy option then I am paying for their idiocy.

You already are paying for their idiocy. Police forces are publicly funded & many of those they deal with are idiots. Wouldn't you rather support a Boys & Girls club than an extra 20 police officers & a juvenile detention center (not saying it's that easy to prevent crime of course, just a simplified hypothetical)?

 

[capslock]

Most people who need to go wouldn't, most of those who do go wouldn't use the resource effectively. those who know what they're doing will pay for a more specialized, nicer, PRIVATE, club.

So where's the benefit?

 

[azzaman333]

There are plenty of ways to get healthier without paying money for advice/gym memberships/etc.

You already are paying for their idiocy. Police forces are publicly funded & many of those they deal with are idiots. Wouldn't you rather support a Boys & Girls club than an extra 20 police officers & a juvenile detention center (not saying it's that easy to prevent crime of course, just a simplified hypothetical)?

I'd rather 20 more police officers.

 

[IAM]

Government involvement would only increase the cost and problems. I love going to the gym and working out but if it bacame a DMV style hassle I probably wouldn't go.

 

[Arwon]

I strongly strongly suspect that the price isn't the inhibiting factor discouraging people here.

 

[Fetus4188]

There are enough unused parks, sports fields/courts, and public pools/beaches around here that I'm pretty sure nobody is waiting for free access to a bunch of silly machines to get exercise.

 

[azzaman333]

I strongly strongly suspect that the price isn't the inhibiting factor discouraging people here.

Yeah, that.

 

[classical_hero]

Free (govt. sponsored) health clubs (perhaps including martial arts clubs & biking clubs & other groups that support engagement in health improving exercise) would certainly make a difference in the overall health of Americas (or any nationals). As would free support groups (IIRC having support as well as job satisfaction are a couple of the top factors in whether those who've suffered a heart attack will make a full recovery). While we're at it why not give people access to a nutritional counseling, marriage counseling (unhappy marriages are deadly) free massage per month, etc?

Seeing as most diseases people die of today in the modern world have some degree of preventability why is the health care system so focused on treatment & not so much on prevention (besides lip service, "exercise, eat right, get along with people, find work you like etc." while doing little to actually encourage such behavior)? It seems the answer is profit.

This does sound quite like my kind of America. We need totally government control of our lifes, since we are the laughing stock of the world

 

[Brighteye]

You already are paying for their idiocy. Police forces are publicly funded & many of those they deal with are idiots. Wouldn't you rather support a Boys & Girls club than an extra 20 police officers & a juvenile detention center (not saying it's that easy to prevent crime of course, just a simplified hypothetical)?

Police forces are there to prevent (or mostly just control and respond to) crime. By paying for a police force I am protecting myself. I would support extra fines on criminals for the police time they're using.

When it comes to health, there's no reason that others' poor choices must affect me. We don't have to force everyone to be healthy. Already smokers are refused treatment on the NHS for some things because they will just make it happen again if they continue to smoke. I would like to see such a system expanded such that for certain problems smokers and obese people are refused treatment because they did it to themselves.
Alternatively, we could have a NHS that operates by individual insurance premiums, like the Swiss system. That way everyone would pay a roughly appropriate amount.

Making me pay for other people's folly, even if it's merely formalising an existing arrangement that makes me pay more, is unacceptable. Sadly I'll be paying for the bankers' mistakes of the last few years, and for the voters' mistakes from well before, in the form of pensions and national debt, for many years to come. I hope that a country elsewhere will take me.