Do we need to raise taxes to fund the NHS?

You're right of course Dom, after putting on a lot of weight recently I'm struggling a little at work clambering over machinery, I have a bad knee and the problem is getting worst due to the extra weight being put on it.

For the last couple of weeks I have been watching what I eat and was more than a little disappointed this morning when I weighed in at the exact weight I was a couple of weeks back when I last weighed myself. I blame on you Italians, I've eaten at a Italian restaurant every day this week while I've been away

Good food is hard to resist.

If you are overweight, will you get your NI contributions back when they refuse to give you the treatment you need?

It seems wrong to discriminate against a significant section of society who have paid just as much into the system as others.

Can we assume that people with a BMI over 30 will get reduced NI contributions?

I mean, the point has been made that obese people are a bigger drain on NHS resources because their obesity is 'a lifestyle choice'.

If the obese are then excluded from receiving treatment, then surely those who are not obese will then themselves become the biggest drain on NHS resources, and the obese would then have cause to complain that the non-obese are a disproportionate drain on the NHS, with legal precedent.

The argument in favour of exclusion is completely flawed. In truth, the biggest drain on NHS resources is in fact, ill people. There will be an accountant somewhere with a meticulously-prepared report which advocates their exclusion.

A similar argument (that of self-inflicted illness through lifestyle choices) could be leveled at those who work outdoors (who then get arthritis) petro-chemical employees who contract cancers, sportspeople who strain and snap tendons, DIY enthusiasts, gardeners, mountain climbers, and a thousand other activities in which there is an increased risk of injury or illness.

I have no autistic relatives, no asthmatics, none with nut allergies, no ADHD, no cerebral palsy, no emphysema, no sickle-cell disease, nor a thousand other illnesses.

Can I get a discount?

As a porker, excluded from the NHS, couldn't I then demand that AIDS sufferers should also be denied treatment, that those who consume large amounts of meat and dairy be excluded for treatment of cardiac and cholesterol related illness? Can I ask that the sexually promiscuous be excluded from receiving treatment for STDs? That users of hard drugs be denied Methodone?

The argument can be extended to ridiculous extremes.

The NHS promised treatment for all, regardless of ability to pay. Let it remain so.

take a deposit off the users

The NHS don't want it back.

Perhaps the users should take a deposit off the NHS to ensure that the NHS take the zimmer frames, crutches and wheelchairs away when they are no longer required.

I agree that's their plan (better lifestyle, no burden), but has it not back fired on them, in the short term.
How much tax revenue have they lost with people stopping smoking?
I think as an ex smoker I can safely say, stop smoking start eating.
Vicious circle.

I'm an ex-smoker too... and have not put on more than a couple of kilos of weight or started eating large quantities of rubbish 'food'.

I would say it is about willpower and common sense. Just use some.

Common sense? Probably more than you could bargain with

Sorry... lost me there.