I totally agree with everything you said.
My point was from the beginning of this conversation is that if people cannot afford to pay for health insurance, how can they afford the additional protein, vitamin, and nutrient supplements that will be required? I never said poor people don't deserve WLS or that it's their fault they are fat as someone way up above perceived my comments to mean. What I DID say is that maybe it's not the right TIME for them to have it. Maybe they need to work towards getting to a more stable place so they can properly take care of themselves after.
My other point is that while everything you said about obesity being a disease and the damage it causes is all an incontrovertible truth, in a LOT of cases, that is not the motivation of the people wanting the surgery. Please note I didn't say all.....I have no idea what the percentage is. As I said in my above post, I think that number in the DS community is very tiny...I think the numbers in the other communities are much higher.
Sigh...I knew I should have stayed out of this thread to begin with.
But, Star, there is more going on here than you are acknowledging.
•You have a very small employee pool. But if everyone paid in a few bucks more, for a better policy, isn't it possible...or even likely...that they would ALL be eligible for insurance that might save the life of one of them or one of their family members? Your decision that a cheaper policy is in the best interest of everyone is probably related to what position in life YOU currently occupy. You may not know whose spouse just got a change to a policy, or lost a job, and now the ONLY insurance they have is what
you decided on...even if they answered one way today, doesn't mean they won't need something more tomorrow. Will this policy cover ANYTHING that might be related to your bariatric surgery...or will you have to pay again?
•How other people spend their money is a recurrent theme in your posts. When someone on Medicaid wants to know a cash price....how do you know that they are not so desperate that they are about to ask their parents or grandparents to pay for surgery or loan them the money? Do you know for sure that the "deadbeat" posting is not in reality the SAHM of a severely disabled child and--because that kid needs around-the-clock care and because her husband couldn't handle the child's disabilities and split (as they often do)--who is at home being low-income and qualifies for Medicaid because of that?
•Do you really feel that people post "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth" online...or even that they are not in denial about how sick they are? My 5'2" 300 pound + sister was APPALLED when she sneaked a peek at her file at the doctor's office and it said "morbidly obese." Her BMI was pushing 60 and all she knew (or chose to be aware of) was that she needed the "extended sizes" at Avenue or Lane Bryant, but mostly had to use Roaman's catalog. THAT bothered her. But her lack of awareness of what her 76" hips. (I kid you not) were doing inside her body did not negate what was happening inside her body. She was sick and getting sicker, from a disease that needed treatment...but she would NEVER have mentioned that part.
•I agree that people who do not have the resources to maintain supplementation should find a source or wait. But some people have caring parents. If my kid were broke and on Medicaid, I would volunteer to cover the cost of supplements to improve her health. I (at least for the moment) have the resources to pop for a loved one's bariatric surgery...even in this country...but almost nobody has the resources to say, "Oh, Honey...don't apply for that nasty old Medicaid, I'll cover your medical bills, whatever they are."
•Yes, the world is full of scammers. When I made a contribution to the (adult) children of a man killed in a newsworthy event, I had to make sure it was going STRAIGHT to them and not to the dead guy's sociopathic mother, who made sure that she was included in some of the "contributions to family." That woman has been on Social Security Disability for over 30 years because she is too emotionally fragile to leave her home...unless there's a free trip to another continent or to be on a TV show taped in NY ...then she has magic recoveries and relapses, just like clockwork. She HAS BEEN turned in, by many people over many years, but sociopaths are VERY good at what they do.
But I'm old enough and I've seen enough suffering to know that some people who look like they need help are just fine and many who look fine are hanging on by a thread. (In fact, I took my K-mart-wardrobe-clad cousin to my car dealership to look around. She wrote a check for her brand new Lexus. You just can't tell by looking. And...and this just irritates the hell out of me...she just let her very depressed adult Down Syndrome son go without his meds for two months while she worked on straightening out his Medicare/Medicaid. She adores him, but it would never occur to her to pay for the meds, even though she would have received 80% reimbursement from an out-of-ountry source. So I get that some parents won't pay. But, really.)
•I don't think you sound elitist. To me, you sound like a working class person who had to struggle to get what she needed and does not believe that others cannot do the same. Thing is, though, we don't all come into this game similarly equipped. Maybe you are set for life...maybe you just think/hope you are. Maybe, like my MO sister, you think you have one problem (people gaming the system) when you really have another that you don't even see (whatever.)
BTW...that ankle weight crap...no one should do that. But I
can see why someone with a BMI of 47 who wants the DS and has to fight an insurance company which, for NO LEGITIMATE REASON, insists that person have a BMI of 50 might be tempted to fight immoral BS with immoral BS. Doesn't make it right, but I understand it better.