This whole issue wouldn't be an issue at all if everyone was just responsible for their own healthcare.

Great idea! Blacks are shown to have higher propensity for heart disease let levy a tax on them. Old people, why waste the resources. Handicapped, either born that way or created through accident, shouldn't they be taxed more too? Now I know your augment, people aren't born fat, and your right, but just how easy is it to put some "high" risk person on the list to increase revenue for "free" heath care? This concept is supposed to be compassion for the poor, yet aren't they the most unhealthy people in the US. But it's a case of pick and choose your flavor of the day for who gets that compassion.

Now if a health provider wants to charge a fat person more for health insurance, fine that's between the insurer and the consumer. Maybe you can explain to me why the fatty should pay more in taxes to cover the paraplegic, who may be a bigger drain on resources under a national health care plan? For that matter why should I pay the same tax when there are people half my age that use medical services way more than I do? Redistribution of wealth, that's all it really is, wrapped up in a nice little socialist package. You can keep it.

Ah yes, anecdotal evidence - always the most reliable!

Anyway here's one study for your reference:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12151467

I'll summarise one of the results of it - if you're obese you're twice as likely to suffer from heart failure. It's also linked to numerous other health problems from the mild to the serious.

It also makes sense intuitively - you don't get fat eating healthy food such as fruit+veg, for example, so it'd be expected that people who are thinner are more likely to eat fewer unhealthy foods which would lead to weight gain, and hence be more likely to eat a higher proportion of the health foods, hence improving their health. Similarly if you're fat it could well be due to a lack of exercise, which again would be expected to have a negative impact on your health.

Quite true.  And if we were talking about cattle, I'd have no problems with the notion.  Humans with free will, on the other hand...

Humans with free will, hence they CHOOSE what they eat, and are directly responsible for whether they're fat or not. If people had no control over it, and were taxed/charged more, it could be argued to be unfair. Arguing that when people do have control makes no sense though. Again, if someone chooses to do something to their body, why should I be asked to pay for it?

Right, exercise can't help with weight loss, fruit+veg aren't healthier for you than chocolate and deep fried food, and all the studies showing a link between obesity and poor health are all pieces of mythology...

I prefer the more straightforward logic, which in simplified form is:

Your body requires x energy. This increases with exercise. You get y energy from food. If you get more energy from food than you use (y>x), your body stores it as fat, => if you eat more than you use, you become fatter. I can also back this up with anecdotal evidence - when I eat loads of food, my weight rises. When I eat very little, it falls. I haven't heard of anyone whose weight (normally) rises the less they eat while falling the more they eat.

My question is who is asking us to pay for what other people do? UHC requires us to pay for others mistakes, private healthcare does not.

Can help is not the same as will help or always helps. It all depends on your body. My weight has been stable for years no matter what I ate and I don't exercise. Who are you to tell me what I should or should not eat? Why is the government wiser than anyone else in what is good for me? I remember the healh experts saying that coffee is bad for you then five years later we are told that coffee helps prevent certian forms of cancer. Oat brand was bad now it is good. I remember Jim Fix and his books on running for a healthier life. He died of a heartattack while running for a better life at age 52. I did not exercise and am now 53. I have never met anyone that has survived life. Everyone will die of something. If you like to exercise and it makes you feel better then be happy and do it. You do not have the right to tell me I must do it. I have cancer, I have been smoking since I was 14, I have been drinking since I was 30, My liver is fine and so are my lungs. I know this because I just finished having my body probed and scanned and prodded by experts. I don't eat grean stuff or any of that so called health food. Oh and the latest study from the NIH says that organicly grown food has no more nutritional value than regular food. So all the experts that have been telling you to eat organic were wrong until the next study comes out saying otherwise. I have eaten fried foods most of my life. maybe its chocolate, I dont' like that stuff much. I should have eaten more chocolate. All I know is that people that eat healthy still die.

My skinny girlfriend, she went on a slimfast diet and gained weight.That was because she had zero body fat to begin with and there was too much fat in slimfast for her body. My mother went strictly vegitarian the last 10 years of her life. She died of lung cancer. She never smoked and rarely drank. She ballooned up her last few years because she stopped eating right.Tofu rice fruits and vegies were the only things she ate. It did not help her with her cancer or her weight gain. You are suggesting a one size fits all and it has been proven not to work.

Exactly right D. We all live until we die, nothing will make you live longer and if you live the so called healthy life you will just die healthy.

No one puts a gun to your head & forces you to buy insurance.  You, on the other hand, would like a gun put to everyone else's head to force them to pay for your healthcare.  So whose business is whose, exactly?

Who, last I checked it was the Gov't who said you should pay for everyone. Why are you blaming anyone else. Is it because this is what people like you wanted? Or is it because you thought only rich people were gonna flip the bill but you got fooled by Obama's BS and now realize even you will be flipping part of the bill? Kinda sucks when the BS hits the fan and gets you too doesn't it? How do you people get up in the morning without getting lost in your own beds?

I am confused, where is the hypocrisy? Please explain.

Here it is.

Opposing a fat tax because you want other people to have to pay for you (if you're fat), while opposing universal health care because it means you have to pay for other people.

Don't worry, I wouldn't expect you to understand it easily, if you have trouble understanding basics such as eating being linked to weight gain.

What point is there in me trying to explain to you again? I mean even a 3 year-old would be able to grasp the idea that if you eat more, you get fatter.

Here it is one final time though:

People choose how much(+what) they eat+exercise, which affects how fat they are. The fatter they are, the more health problems they are likely to have, meaning the more healthcare they require on average. This means that providing healthcare to a fat person costs on average more than to a non-fat person. This means if you charge both of them the same amount, the non-fat person is subsidising the fat person.