Summations Only

Not true at all. I have yet to meet a smoker who didn't look both ways before crossing a street. Actually, yes it does. The human psyche has a way of ignoring long term trends in favor of short term trends. This is why people look at global warming differently than dumping deadly toxins onto a schoolyard. Heroin addiction has much more drastic and serious health effects than smoking. You can't base laws on Utopian expectations. This has never worked. Any policy needs to factor in basic human frailties, one of which is people doing bad things for their long term health. This is why communism fails, it just assumes that everyone will stop being greedy because it is in the best interest of the society. The most stable societies are those that allow for greed within their economic system while still allowing for a semblence of fairness. I can't argue against that one.

40 to 50 million americans are without health insurance. Their only recourse is to wait until a condition is bad enough that it requires an emergency room visit where they can not be turned away.We are also paying twice as much per capita as countries who do have universal health coverage. So we spend twice as much and we are still leaving 1/6th of our population out in the cold. Our government already spend as much per capita on Medicare/Medicaid as other countries, and yet they are able to cover EVERYONE, not just the very poor and the very old. Our healthcare system is not working.

That's not the reason. If not obesity then it would be problems later in life, such as cancer. Cancer treatment is just as constly, and for the most part it is unavoidable even for those who have lived a healthy lifestyle. Also, in 2009 we spent $2.5 trillion combined (private and public, source). You are talking about an 1/8th of the overall cost. We are spending 2 TIMES more than other countries. Obviously, it isn't because of the fatties. While we are at it, why don't we blame those old people who keep getting cancer in their eighties.

Then you need to show that the gap between healthcare expenditures in the US and France is due to higher obesity rates in the US compared to France. You haven't done that yet. Cancer risks increase with age. There is nothing new about this. Age is by far the leading risk factor. For example:

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Your risk of developing breast cancer increases as you get older. About 1 out of 8 invasive breast cancers are found in women younger than 45, while about 2 of 3 invasive breast cancers are found in women age 55 or older.
Breast Cancer Risk Factors and Prevention Methods

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On top of that, end of life care is by far the most expensive. From what I have heard, no one is immortal. If you live long enough you will get cancer. It is just a matter of time before that last oncogene goes down.

We spend more per person, period. It costs less to treat an obese person in France than in the US. That is the point I am trying to make. There are still obese people in France as well, and yet they are able to afford universal health coverage at half of our cost.

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Obesity Not Aging Balloons Health Care Costs
. . . Analyzing Medicare data, federal researchers showed that elderly people in good shape at age 70 meaning they had no difficulties performing tasks of daily living such as walking and shopping could expect to live to 84.3, and after 70 they had average, cumulative health care bills totaling $136,000. In contrast, less healthy 70-year-olds with at least one limitation in daily-living activities could expect to live to 81.6 nearly three years less yet had cumulative medical bills of about $145,000 during their shorter remaining lives.

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That is not that much of a difference, too little to explain why we pay twice as much as France for comparatively inferior care. You should also compare this to the average cost of healthcare for 20-35 year olds. I think you will see a difference. I never said that obesity was not hurting our healthcare cost. What I am saying is that end of life care is the most expensive, and it is. I am also saying that US healthcare costs twice as much as comparable, and even better, healthcare in countries with universal health coverage. The difference in cost between the US and other countries is because of our for profit system.

I think this is more of a moral responsibility across the entire system. At this time, healthcare in the US is for profit. There is no driving force in the market to push prices down. For any business, there is simply no reason to make your services affordable to everyone, and that is exactly what we have in the US. It is actually poor business practice for insurance companies to insure people with health problems. It is in the best interest of insurance companies to deny coverage to people who need insurance the most. This is a very big moral problem.We can use education as an analogy. We have decided that it is a moral imperative that education be available to everyone across all economic classes. Public school systems began after the US Civil War to educate the children of former slaves. At the time, literacy was extremely low in this group. Access to education was being doled out based on class and economics, a very non-democratic system. Where would we be now if only the middle and upper classes had access to education? How immoral would it be if access to education was based on class? Norway, Sweden, Finland, the UK, and France are all different countries with different people in a different culture. They all have universal healthcare. They are all healthier than us. Everyone has access to healthcare from the day they are born, and before that. Their per capita healthcare costs are well below ours.

France: 65 million
Germany: 81 million
Japan: 127 million
UK: 62 millionThose countries have way more than 2% of our population and have universal health coverage that works.

We have a for profit system that has no incentive to lower prices so that everyone can afford health care. That is not a functioning system. The reason that the health care system is failing is because of the fundamentals of the current health care system.We are not paying 100% more than other countries because we have more fatties. The obesity rate in the US is 30% while the obesity rate in the UK is 23% (source). In 2009 the per capita cost for health care was 7,900 in the US and 3.400 in the UKsource). You are trying to claim that we are spending more than twice as much because of 7% more fatties? Sorry, not buying it.Edited by Taq, : No reason given.

Probably sub-Saharan Africa where the infant mortality rate is extremely high, malaria is rampant, and HIV continues to spread. I wouldn't be surprised if the average life span in some of these areas is below 50 years.Nonetheless, you still didn't address my point. No matter how healthy or unhealthy our country is the for profit nature of the health care system will still drive up prices since there is no incentive to make health care affordable for everyone. Makes sense to whom? Those that profit from health care or those who need health care? I just showed you the numbers, and you did not address them. In the US we have an obesity rate of 30% and spend $8,000 per person. In the UK they have an obesity rate of 23% and only spend $3,500 per person. Fatties are not the cause.