BrObesity
Right, calling fat on this one.
New Zealand, thanks to its large Maori and Pacific Island population is succeeding as the third fattest nation behind America and Mexico. Fact.
The obesity rate among adults in New Zealand in 2007 was 26.5 per cent. This compared with figures reported the previous year by the United States at 34.3 per cent and Mexico at 30 per cent.
And even that number looks conservative based on the fat graph above. If you are Pacific Islander you are three times as likely to be obese as a European and Maori are twice as likely.
So I'm calling fat on this one. Until Maori and Pacific Islanders can "improve" their statistics in excelling at being fat, I propose a 20% health levy on all pre-tax income derived by Maori tribes such as Tainui and Ngai Tahu, to be tagged for their healthcare. Levying Pacific Islanders is a tad harder as they didn't receive government handouts because of their race, so lets slap a dedicated 20% health levy on all welfare payments and grants made to their communities to be paid into the health fund.
If it's good enough in America for the supposed "wealthy" to be paying more tax to fund obese bludgers (and we know Obama is an idiot), it's good enough in New Zealand for the source of the problems to start paying differentiated tax rates and levies based on their propensity to use services if they can't be made to pay for their own treatment thanks to the overly-generous New Zealand public health system.
The health of particularly Maori and Pacific Island New Zealanders is disgusting and its no one's fault but their own. Europeans aren't forcing fatty foods down their throats and chaining them to the couch. They are killing themselves, unfortunately slowly as their weight is placing a large strain on the New Zealand public health system with years of obesity related illness.
Government cannot be expected to interfere in the lives of people and tell them they cannot eat foods, and these "5 plus a day" huggy campaigns just do not seem to work for the right people so lets look at it the other way - like insurance companies do. Passing responsibility on based on risk.
When you complete a private health insurance application you enter your weight and fatties are charged sometimes a 10% extra levy for being that way. The insurance company doesn't care if you are "big boned", from a particular ethnic group or a whinger. Their actuarial staff have worked out the statistical higher risk that you are based on this factor that people can avoid. They can by law differentiate and charge you more.
Unfortunately it wouldn't fly to place a tax or levy on individuals as it would be deemed to be racially bias, so lets look at differentiating levies on corporate/tribal income or withholding a portion of government grants to these groups. Different corporates/non-profit/unincorporated societies are taxed differently, so I can't see why it shouldn't apply here.
Lets make it in Maori and Pacific Island Leadership's best interest to do something about their people dying from nothing at all but being over-eating lardarses and brobesity while in the process bleeding the country's health system dry for many years.
If Maori in particular were actually paying for their own people's healthcare you can bet your bottom dollar the likes of Tainui and Ngai Tahu would make it a priority to get their people fit and change attitudes.
Course Tainui could stop investing in airport hotels and build their own airport hospital for their people......idea.
New Zealand, thanks to its large Maori and Pacific Island population is succeeding as the third fattest nation behind America and Mexico. Fact.
The obesity rate among adults in New Zealand in 2007 was 26.5 per cent. This compared with figures reported the previous year by the United States at 34.3 per cent and Mexico at 30 per cent.
And even that number looks conservative based on the fat graph above. If you are Pacific Islander you are three times as likely to be obese as a European and Maori are twice as likely.
So I'm calling fat on this one. Until Maori and Pacific Islanders can "improve" their statistics in excelling at being fat, I propose a 20% health levy on all pre-tax income derived by Maori tribes such as Tainui and Ngai Tahu, to be tagged for their healthcare. Levying Pacific Islanders is a tad harder as they didn't receive government handouts because of their race, so lets slap a dedicated 20% health levy on all welfare payments and grants made to their communities to be paid into the health fund.
If it's good enough in America for the supposed "wealthy" to be paying more tax to fund obese bludgers (and we know Obama is an idiot), it's good enough in New Zealand for the source of the problems to start paying differentiated tax rates and levies based on their propensity to use services if they can't be made to pay for their own treatment thanks to the overly-generous New Zealand public health system.
The health of particularly Maori and Pacific Island New Zealanders is disgusting and its no one's fault but their own. Europeans aren't forcing fatty foods down their throats and chaining them to the couch. They are killing themselves, unfortunately slowly as their weight is placing a large strain on the New Zealand public health system with years of obesity related illness.
Government cannot be expected to interfere in the lives of people and tell them they cannot eat foods, and these "5 plus a day" huggy campaigns just do not seem to work for the right people so lets look at it the other way - like insurance companies do. Passing responsibility on based on risk.
When you complete a private health insurance application you enter your weight and fatties are charged sometimes a 10% extra levy for being that way. The insurance company doesn't care if you are "big boned", from a particular ethnic group or a whinger. Their actuarial staff have worked out the statistical higher risk that you are based on this factor that people can avoid. They can by law differentiate and charge you more.
Unfortunately it wouldn't fly to place a tax or levy on individuals as it would be deemed to be racially bias, so lets look at differentiating levies on corporate/tribal income or withholding a portion of government grants to these groups. Different corporates/non-profit/unincorporated societies are taxed differently, so I can't see why it shouldn't apply here.
Lets make it in Maori and Pacific Island Leadership's best interest to do something about their people dying from nothing at all but being over-eating lardarses and brobesity while in the process bleeding the country's health system dry for many years.
If Maori in particular were actually paying for their own people's healthcare you can bet your bottom dollar the likes of Tainui and Ngai Tahu would make it a priority to get their people fit and change attitudes.
Course Tainui could stop investing in airport hotels and build their own airport hospital for their people......idea.
posted by Cactus Kate at 4:27 AM
15 Comments:
Come on now Kate you are making hard work out of this problem. I think you need a holiday: you really aren't delivering your usual quality of thinking on this issue.
Surely it would be far easier to completely privatize the health system, cut taxes and let people use the money to pay for their own health insurance ? The insurance companies would then take care of pricing individual risk.
The Iwi's could then , if they chose, pay the insurance premiums of their members.
Could do the same for the unemployment and other benefits. Utilize the actuarial skills of the insurance companies to assess risk: let Iwi's pay their members premiums and give the rest of us massive tax cuts.
Invoice in the post for this brutal crtique.
First up, the stats are of course wrong. NZ is one of a small group of countries that estimate obesity rates by measuring samples. Most countries do so by self-reporting. That means everyone who is in denial about their weight most other places never gets counted as being obese.
The simple fact is that those countries that estimate obesity by measurements, consistently have higher obesity rates than those that depend on self-reporting. It's just showing changes in measurement methodologies.
Second, the other brutal reality is that the European population in NZ is actually very fit by these standards. If we purged our sample of Maori and PI populations, then NZ's obesity rate drops away dramatically.
No point indulging in self-flagellation that the NZ population is turning into fatties. It's a problem that is alas, localised.
Excellent plan. User pays. BTW, in NZ price loadings on insurance premiums for morbidity benefits (medical, income, trauma) tend to start at 50% above standard, usually from 30+ BMI.
Ouch, stinging reality. Pity its there is no political will to front up to the reality.
Bryan
Of course it would be ideal to have private insurance, but New Zealand is choosing not to have full user pays and responsibility.
In my experience there is a 10% weighting on international health insurance policies for fatties on medical premiums, but here someone is saying it is 50% in New Zealand.
In which case Maori and PI'ers would alas be uninsurable at their current levels of fatness.
Chtoniid - that is my point - Maori and PI's must stop eating and get off the couch as they are ruining the statistics for everyone.
CK said...
must stop eating...
I am one of those PIs that can't stop eating. My meat intake is one Kg/day or even more if it is a drinking day, just to maintain my 110 Kg body mass. If I reduce the amount I eat then I feel sick or feel weak.
CK said...
get off the couch as they are ruining the statistics for everyone...
Um!!, but that's what I do every-week, ie, 2 hours per training session for at most 4 times a week.
I think that us Islanders obesity problems is due to mostly lack of exercise and perhaps less about how much we eat.
FF
Stop the whinging. It's got nothing to do with being an Islander, when you diet of course you feel sick and weak, as your body is used to eating your normal amount of food.
Women have been feeling sick and weak in the quest to get thinner for decades, even centuries, suck it up. The feeling passes as you reach a new level of what your body gets used to eating.
If you are training 2 hrs a day, for 4 times a week, alas it's totally not about your exercise level, it's about what you are stoking your body with as fuel.
Go see a nutritionalist, you are obviously eating the wrong foods.
"In which case Maori and PI'ers would alas be uninsurable at their current levels of fatness." - and the problem is ? You sound terrifying like a Labour voter.
The obese ones would die and evolution would breed a leaner meaner population. Really Cactus, I think you need to spend more time lying down - you are in danger of losing your edge.
No, as Obese people will shortly form more than 50% of the population they would start their own MMP party and tax people for being thin.
Why was the first Maccas in NZ in Porirua? Why didn't Maccas make it to the South Island for a decade after the first one opened?
Could it be that the SI doesn't have enough ... brown people?
"Utilize the actuarial skills of the insurance companies to assess risk"
Ha ha ha - in NZ? Acturial skills in an insurance company? Ha ha ha good one
´"So I'm calling fat on this one. Until Maori and Pacific Islanders can "improve" their statistics in excelling at being fat, I propose a 20% health levy on all pre-tax income derived by Maori tribes such as Tainui and Ngai Tahu, to be tagged for their healthcare. Levying Pacific Islanders is a tad harder as they didn't receive government handouts because of their race, so lets slap a dedicated 20% health levy on all welfare payments and grants made to their communities to be paid into the health fund."
"Thats gold Jerry. Gold!"
BS: Re first comment on privatisation of health & welfare and returning (tax) monies to those who earned it, etc -- you're sounding scarily libertarian.
I like it! :)
Michael, no, I think it was because MickeyD's were worried, that with all the inbreeding down south, the opposable thumb had evolved into a nifty fixed speights ring pull device incapable of holding a burger without spilling it. A night at Riccarton confirmed this however non of the locals seemed to mid spilling food on themselves so MickeyD opened up down south.
Nearly all fat people are greedy and lazy and probably stupid. They only exist because taxpayers can pay for their healthcare. If people want to be greedy and lazy, we should let them suffer the consequences themselves.
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