Health benefits to society of cycling

[Shut Up Legs]

^^^ That annoys me a bit. Eat yourself stupid and get Type II diabetes (or smoke drugs until you turn schizophrenic, smoke tobacco until you get lung cancer, etc) and you get your prescriptions for free.

Live a healthy lifestyle and end up with something like MS etc through no fault of your own, you get to pay for your prescriptions.

The Government would save a lot of money if people paid for the consequences of their lifestyle instead of being rewarded with free prescriptions, while those who take care of themselves get charged for the privilege. Its truly muffed up.

I blame the evolution of Western societies' legal systems over the last several decades for this. Instead of people paying for the consequences of their own actions, in good-old New Testament style, they pay lawyers so that other people can pay for their actions. I'm convinced that the health systems' support of many people with self-inflicted conditions*** is just an extension of this evolution of the legal system.

Anyway, I'd better stop, before I get booted over to SC&P. I don' wanna go there!

*** I'm only talking about those, not the people who have conditions through no fault of their own.

 

[ColinJ]

My Dad has to take wafarin and another drug every day or he would more than likey die, neither are free and it ammounts to a fair amount over the year in charges.

My original post should have stated "IS one of those drugs that ...". I have corrected it now.

 

[keithmac]

He has worked since leaving school, paid his national insurance rarely been to the doctors and the only time he needs something back they've shafted him basically..

 

[ozboz]

Use 'em or lose 'em ,
That was a term I used to hear a lot some years ago,
my Dad virtually lost the use of his legs in later life , a lot to do with an injury he got in WW2 , but, I think if he had got about more things may have been different toward the end ,cycling could have been beneficial,
I began riding again several years for health reasons, but more as a preventive measure , at 64 I feel it is working quite well for me , I have two older bro's who are all but knackered , and one younger who if he doesn't get his finger out and lose some serious weight will in 5 years maybe have some serious problems ,
I have tried to point out the benifits of getting a decent SH bike , he says yeah , but ....

 

[mjr]

The Lib Dems can say anything, because it will never amount to anything.

People said that before 2010 too. It's a dangerous attitude to take.

I didn't realise this was so limited. I get free prescriptions as I need to take anticonvulsants daily, and I assumed everybody who needed permanent medication did.

The Brown government announced that we would, then said we would have to wait until after the election because of all the money being put into the banks or something. The Cameron coalition government immediately placed the policy under review and as far as I know the review's done nothing and doing nothing. I guess it's too politically toxic to explicitly reject the policy and say you're going to be tough on chronically-ill people, tough on the wallets of chronically-ill people, but it's no less evil to simply do it IMO.

"1 in 3 people in England with a long-term condition have not collected medication due to the cost, and many cut down their dosage to save money." http://www.prescriptionchargescoalition.org.uk/campaign-blog

We are literally saving the nation a few pounds now and making it so we pay thousands later. Successive governments do this by failing to support walking and cycling, but also by demanding up-front payment for such basic healthcare.

 

[SteveF]

Whilst walking the dog and listening to the news earlier, the lib dems were talking about raising money for the nhs by increasing income tax by 1%. This got me thinking: instead of giving more money to the nhs, would we better served by making everybody ride bikes? Obviously I'm being rather simplistic and facetious here, but what I was wondering is how does the general health of a population that is "fully geared" towards cycling (sorry!) compare to that of the people of Britain? Holland for example: for all its well espoused bike friendly policies, are the Dutch people healthier than us? And if so, can this be directly attributed to cycling?

Not sure about that, cycling seems to cause an awful amount of stress and angst amongst some of the forum users looking at some of the posts, may help with the cardio vascular but not sure it's helping with the mental wellbeing of some.

 

[ColinJ]

Not sure about that, cycling seems to cause an awful amount of stress and angst amongst some of the forum users looking at some of the posts, may help with the cardio vascular but not sure it's helping with the mental wellbeing of some.

If you think we are bad now, you should see us without the cycling!