The only reason that I keep bringing up worthiness to receive care is to reaffirm that idea that the hospital is a safety net. That is the only way I think about it. I’m not looking for efficiencies. Its efficiencies do not affect my moral calculus.
If there were enough smokers that the hospital had to triage the issue to focus on some guy’s brain tumor, that’s fine. That’s a budgeting issue. I would also choose the nicer of two people if both were hanging off either end of a bridge.
Would it be nice to spend obesity money on something else? Sure. It can’t be, though. It’s hard to see obesity and cost as a moral issue when I don’t actually view the obese, nor the smoker, nor the drug addict, nor the suicidal, nor the adrenaline junkie, nor the MMA fighter, nor the venomous snake guy as burdens. Every one of these people “should know” that they will cost the medical industry money; they might be the ones to “kill” a guy with a brain tumor. I’m not bothered by this because these are the very people the medical industry is built to serve. It exists for them.
A medical industry that cannot accomodate obesity is one that is failing its own constituents. It is failing to serve its purpose. So, becoming obese, and costing the healthcare system money, is immaterial. It doesn’t matter.
But, a guy in the supermarket sneezing on people is a burden. Not because he is straining medical services and indirectly murdering in-care patients, but because there are people in the supermarket who now must be burdened with illness.
So this is what my view comes down to:
If a person gets someone else sick, it is their fault for spreading disease.
If a 100-capacity hospital is unable to accomodate a 101st person, that is a systemic failure of the hospital, or its backing government.
This view is useful because it means I am socially equipped to punish people for anti-social and irresponsible medical behavior, but also that I remain sympathetic to victims of the tobacco and sugar industries. And that guy with the snake.
It’s also not that complicated, because my problem is chiefly with anti-social behavior.
How does this relate to necrophilia?.. I don’t know. He probably shouldn’t do that.
The only reason that I keep bringing up worthiness to receive care is to reaffirm that idea that the hospital is a safety net. That is the only way I think about it. I’m not looking for efficiencies. Its efficiencies do not affect my moral calculus.
If there were enough smokers that the hospital had to triage the issue to focus on some guy’s brain tumor, that’s fine. That’s a budgeting issue. I would also choose the nicer of two people if both were hanging off either end of a bridge.
Would it be nice to spend obesity money on something else? Sure. It can’t be, though. It’s hard to see obesity and cost as a moral issue when I don’t actually view the obese, nor the smoker, nor the drug addict, nor the suicidal, nor the adrenaline junkie, nor the MMA fighter, nor the venomous snake guy as burdens. Every one of these people “should know” that they will cost the medical industry money; they might be the ones to “kill” a guy with a brain tumor. I’m not bothered by this because these are the very people the medical industry is built to serve. It exists for them.
A medical industry that cannot accomodate obesity is one that is failing its own constituents. It is failing to serve its purpose. So, becoming obese, and costing the healthcare system money, is immaterial. It doesn’t matter.
But, a guy in the supermarket sneezing on people is a burden. Not because he is straining medical services and indirectly murdering in-care patients, but because there are people in the supermarket who now must be burdened with illness.
So this is what my view comes down to:
This view is useful because it means I am socially equipped to punish people for anti-social and irresponsible medical behavior, but also that I remain sympathetic to victims of the tobacco and sugar industries. And that guy with the snake.
It’s also not that complicated, because my problem is chiefly with anti-social behavior.
How does this relate to necrophilia?.. I don’t know. He probably shouldn’t do that.