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Whoopie Pies, Supersized Fries

“Just” Snacking? “Just” Des(s)erts?1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 December 2011

Extract

The annual cost of healthcare in the United States reached $2.5 trillion in 2009 (about 17.6% of GDP) with projections to 2019 of about $4.5 trillion (about 20% of likely GDP).

Type
Special Section: Open Forum
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

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References

1. Maine and Lancaster, Pennsylvania, both want to claim to be the originator of the whoopie pie. The Maine legislature is seeking to make it the state dessert, hardly an affirmative vote for a greater degree of personal responsibility for health. Zezima, K.Laying claim to a treat, and hearing, “not so fast.” New York Times 2011 Mar 12Google Scholar; available at http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/03/us/03whoopie.html (last accessed 3 Mar 2011).

2. Truffer, CJ, Keehan, S, Smith, S, Cylus, J, Sisko, A, Poisal, JA, et al. . Health spending projections through 2019: The recession’s impact continues. Health Affairs 2010;29:522–9.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

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4. American Diabetes Association. Diabetes statistics: Data from the 2011 National Diabetes Fact Sheet; available at http://www.diabetes.org/diabetes-basics/diabetes-statistics (last accessed 7 Feb 2011). Twenty-six million Americans have diabetes, and another 79 million Americans are prediabetic.

5. The egalitarians who are strong advocates of personal responsibility for health are luck egalitarians. Their essential claim is that responsibility must be an integral part of a morally defensible conception of healthcare justice. See Dworkin, R.Sovereign Virtue: The Theory and Practice of Equality. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; 2000Google Scholar, especially chapters 2 and 13.

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9. See, for example Meulen, R.Increasing individual responsibility in Dutch health care: Is solidarity losing ground? Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 2008;33:262–79.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

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13. A recent story in the New York Times is perfectly illustrative of this point. See Alford, H.My unhealthy diet? It got me this far. New York Times 2011 Feb 28Google Scholar; available at http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/02/dining/02Elder.html?hpw=&;pagewanted=print (accessed 3 Mar 2011).

14. McCarthy, M.Genomics, type 2 diabetes, and obesity. New England Journal of Medicine 2010;363:2339–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 2347.

15. Ibid., at 2346. McCarthy cites in support of this conclusion Speliotes, EK, Willer, CJ, Berndt, SI, Monda, KL, Thorleifsson, G, Jackson, AU, et al. . Association analyses of 249,796 individuals reveal 18 new loci associated with body mass index. Nature Genetics 2010;42:949–60.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

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17. See note 14, McCarthy 2010.

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23. I argue in the following text that the physician in this case is being expected to implement a policy that is prima facie unjustly discriminatory.

24. See Harris, J.Could we hold people responsible for their own adverse health? Journal of Contemporary Health Law and Policy 1995;12:147–53, at 150.Google ScholarPubMed

25. Apparently individuals who do multiple marathons and ultramarathons over the course of many years are likely to do serious damage to their hearts. To avoid premature death, such individuals would need a left ventricular assist device at $200,000 or an artificial heart at $300,000. See Reynolds, G.When exercise is too much of a good thing. New York Times 2011 Mar 9Google Scholar, Well column.

26. This is what Rawls refers to as “rational autonomy,” that is, citizens think of themselves “as having the moral power to form, to revise, and rationally to pursue a conception of the good” (at 72). Rawls, J.Political Liberalism. New York: Columbia University Press; 1993.Google Scholar

27. I and two colleagues have argued against casually accusing some parents of children with various genetic disorders of being irresponsible. Andre, J, Fleck, LM, Tomlinson, T.On being genetically “irresponsible.” Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 2000;10(2):129–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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29. On using coercive social policies to bring about greater responsibility for personal health in citizens see Wikler, D.Persuasion and coercion for health: Ethical issues in government efforts to change life-styles. Milbank Memorial Fund Quarterly 1978;56:303–38.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed Likewise, Elizabeth Anderson is concerned that such government efforts would effectively obliterate the line between the public and the private to the detriment of individuals. See Anderson, E.What is the point of equality? Ethics 1999;109:287–337.CrossRefGoogle Scholar But I reject the views of libertarians who endorse some form of consumer-directed healthcare as an approach to healthcare cost containment and personal responsibility. For a critical assessment of those views, see Axtell-Thompson, LM.Consumer directed health care: Ethical limits to choice and responsibility. Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 2005;30:207–26.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

30. For a detailed defense of rational democratic deliberation in making fair and just rationing decisions, see Fleck, LM.Just Caring: Health Care Rationing and Democratic Deliberation. New York: Oxford University Press; 2009.Google Scholar See especially chapter 5.

31. See note 6, Segall 2010. See especially chapters 4 and 5.

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