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The obese are crippling the NHS. It’s time to make them pay

Lose the weight, or lose state-funded healthcare. It’s your call…

We just want politicians to be honest – or so we always claim. In reality, a genuinely honest politician would be almost universally loathed. Especially if he or she dared to be honest about the NHS.
‘You really want to know why your beloved health service is falling apart?’, they would ask us. “No, it’s not because it’s ‘underfunded’ – the amount of money we tip into its insatiable maw swells by the year. The real reason the NHS is: a) collapsing and b) ever more expensive is quite simple. It’s because you, the public, have grown so monstrously fat.
‘A quarter – yes, a quarter – of adults in England today are obese, while a further 38 per cent are overweight. And that’s having grave consequences not just for you, but for the NHS. According to research published this week, the most obese patients cost the NHS an average of £1,871 a year, each. And if that doesn’t sound alarming enough, put it like this: health problems linked to obesity are estimated to cost the NHS around £6.5 billion annually. So if you love the NHS as much as you all insist, here’s an idea: help save it, by losing some blasted weight.’
That, at least, would be honest – if perhaps a touch brusque in tone. At any rate, I myself prefer to take a gentler, more liberal view. As far as I’m concerned, people should be free to grow as fat as they like. If you want to live on a diet consisting exclusively of cream horns and KFC, go ahead. It’s your life. Have fun. I would, however, add just one small caveat.
When you inevitably need treatment for the health problems your diet has caused, you should pay for it yourself. Which is why I suggest that the obese be required, by law, to take out private health insurance. No access to state healthcare. The obese have crippled the NHS. So now it’s time to make them pay. 
It may sound drastic. But drastic action is what we plainly need. The Government is planning to impose restrictions on ads for junk food, but I find this idea depressing – mainly because it makes us, the public, look so pathetic. Have we really grown so hopelessly weak-willed that we can’t watch a 10-second ad for Big Macs without automatically waddling to McDonald’s? Have we become overgrown children who need politicians to act as our parents because we’re incapable of resisting our most idiotic impulses?
Personally, I would rather the Government treated us like adults. Leave us free to make our own decisions – as long as we’re willing to take responsibility for the consequences. Which, in this case, means paying for them out of our own pockets, rather than burdening our fellow taxpayers. 
That, I think, is what an honest – not to mention brave – politician would say. An even braver politician might dare to introduce a link between entitlement to Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA) and BMI (a basic method of assessing weight) – so that, in order to claim JSA, you have to follow a healthy diet. This would not just save the NHS money, but help get people back to work. According to a report last year, almost 500,000 people in the UK are unable to work as a result of eating too much junk food, drinking too much alcohol and smoking.
Of course, I appreciate that many people will find the above ideas cruel and draconian. In which case, I hope I can set their minds at ease – because, very obviously, there’s zero chance that these ideas will ever come to pass. No politician ever got elected by blaming us for our own problems. Why tell us the truth when the truth could cost so many votes?

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