Monday, October 26, 2009

Another reason to drop the lard

Vanity may be the greatest, yet sublime, reason that many of us choose a life of fitness and health to be lean and mean and capable of fitting in our clothes without looking like a stuffed enchilada. Many heads of former fatsos have swollen with pride upon receiving a compliment about how great they now look after losing a ton of weight.

If vanity is what does it, then so be it because whatever gets the job done is what matters.

A recent news article I stumbled across on the internet late last week provides another motivation to get rid of unwanted pounds and this one has an economic twist. An October 22, 2009 Associated Press news article reported than some ambulance companies will start charging extra for obese patients. It costs ambulance companies more to transport obese patients and they say it’s time for insurance providers, Medicaid and Medicare, or patients themselves to begin paying the added costs which are cutting into their profit margins.

This makes total sense to me. We buy our deli lunch meats, fruits and vegetables, and many other items by the pound and transporting merchandise via truck or rail is also by the pound with 200 pounds costing more than 100 pounds in most cases.

So this proposition gets my vote. I’m all for my 140 lb. friend getting a ride to the hospital at a lower cost than my 180 lb. butt. It’s news that makes sense and for an obese person, it’s another reason to drop the lard.

Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I don't think it's the 180 lb people they're worried about. It's the 280 lb'ers (and bigger).
I'm sure they have to have extra personnel to carry huge people so that they don't injure themselves.
Sadly, I doubt that it's going to be much incentive for them to lose weight.

Justin_PS said...

But it's a step in the right direction: if you're going to be fat, you're going to have to pay for it, for a change.