The author has hit the nail on the head with this:

"It is nothing but indecent to stand-by and allow others to endure preventable suffering."

Preventable. The key word here. Obesity and smoking are entirely preventable. Why should society be the net to catch those who have entirely preventable conditions?

"Their flawed conduct is self-regarding - it does not hurt others and in all probability they have a number of redeeming features"

It does hurt others. They are consuming resources which could be better spent on try medical needs.

"However, in an opulent society in Australia where we have virtually infinite medical resources it is rare that choices between patients need to be made."

We have a very finite amount of medical resources. They are already overstretched and further overloading it with "fatties and smokers" (the authors words) is not going to help.

No, this article was wrong in every sense: in the conceptual sense as well as the pragmatic sense

If I follow your logic correctly, BN, we should expect - nay, demand - that triage in the emergency admissions area of a hospital should include an instant assessment of whether the car-crash patient was responsible for the accident that caused their condition.

Nothing less will do for you, I suspect. If indeed the crash was "avoidable", but the driver did not take the steps necessary to do so, they should be abandoned to their fate. In fact, why bother even to send an ambulance to the crash site, until BN has been summoned to assess who was in the right, who was in the wrong, and therefore who deserves treatment under the BN regime.

Also, if we follow the same BN path, why should we bother with rescue helicopters? Aren't they there simply to rescue people who chose to expose themselves to danger by walking in the Blue Mountains and carelessly falling into a ravine? Or folks who stupidly go for a swim when they are fully aware that doing so can land them in trouble?

Hey, why stop there? Take the name and address of everyone who buys a Big Mac, or a bucket of chips, and send the list to every hospital in the land, saying "do not admit this person in the event of a heart attack - it was all their own fault".

Is this the sort of country you would like to live in, BN?

No, I rather suspect not. But you would, on the other hand, like to be the person who decides who deserves treatment, and who fails to pass your morality test, wouldn't you?

That puts you in a fairly well-defined category of human being, BN. I'll leave you to work out which that is.

That was a predictable response Pericles.

The clear difference between a car crash and obesity is that obesity is something that takes months and years of neglect to create - it is not a situation which happens in the blink of an eye, which a car crash often happens.

Is your policy to have an open cheque book in the medical system? If so, be prepared for significantly higher taxes to pay for that, particularly with the growth (pardon the pun) of rates of obesity. If not, where/when do people face the consequences of their actions (or inactions)? Obesity and smoking don't just happen - they are (almost universally) the result of decisions made by the person in terms of energy in (what's been eaten) and energy out (exercise).

Re burgers and chips, they are fine if you do the work to burn them off. I personally eat take away items all the time (not necesasrily burgers and chips), but then I'm in the gym 6 days a week to burn off all the calories that I take in.

This is a simple demonstration of taking responsibility - I know what I'm eating, so I do the work to avoid the consequences like obesity. Can you say the same thing?

"Re burgers and chips, they are fine if you do the work to burn them off. I personally eat take away items all the time (not necesasrily burgers and chips), but then I'm in the gym 6 days a week to burn off all the calories that I take in."

How you do moralise, BN!

Mind you, people eating takeaways regularly are exposing themselves to health risks and you "personally eat take away items all the time."

For instance commercial manufacturing of chips includes a coating of fungus as a preservative - not fit for human consumption actually. Now that you are aware of that, perhaps you should refrain from risk taking behaviour.

Most take-aways are lathered in saturated fats. You may not be fat but your arteries could be!

Perhaps your risk taking behaviour will see you denied medical treatment should you succumb to the many insidious diseases caused by take-away (junk) foods.

Those other people who have obesity problems or smoke cigarettes are addicted. No-one really wants to over-indulge in food, alcohol, other drugs or cigarettes.

Do you recommend that bulimics and anorexics be denied medical treatment also? This too is an addiction, out of the victim's control.

Besides, how can we be sure that the surgeon treating his patient hasn't an addiction to morphine or some other substance?

The last time I took a friend to the emergency department of a hospitial, the female intern had a stud in her tongue and I'm convinced she also had breast implants?

Some health professionals advise that tongue studs could cause cancer and that leaky silicone breast implants can also cause serious complications.

Perhaps Clare, the lovely lass who died last week from melanoma caused by visits to solariums should have been denied medical treatment prior to her death. The risks from solarium tanning have been known for many years despite its ongoing popularity.

I have private medical insurance which I rarely use. I trust the surplus goes towards assisting others, regardless of their medical conditions.

As usual, Mirko has written a sensible and compassionate article! Dobra, dobra, Mirko!

Great BN which yank fast food giant do you want to ban first McDonald's or KFC. I can hear the howls from capitalism from here....free enterprise, we want to make a profit by exploiting children on the counter, leave us in peace. On the other hand, let society pay for the consequences by giving the problem at the end to public hospitals which are grossly underfunded by the Howard Government to deal with.

Education is the key and a turn away from US expansionism consumerism, but who is brave enough to stand up to the US and return our traditional culture to us. A. Nobody.

Goodness, so much emotion. It is a fact that obesity costs many billions of dollars in health care in Australia. It is also a fact that in a few years eighty percent of Australians will be overweight placing an insupportable burden on our already overstretched health care system. The consequences of this will be born by the few tax payers still slim enough to work.
Would you have any objection to health insurance premiums [including medicare] being tied to life-style choices? That way, fatties and smokers and thrill seekers would be funding their own eventual treatment.