May 10, 2013

"I wanted people to see the issues that can happen to your body, to your skin, when you put an extreme amount of weight on..."

"A lot of people think that's just going to shrink back, but it doesn't. If people find it shocking, perhaps they will think twice that they mustn't get themselves in that state."
[Paul Mason] said about eight stone [112 pounds] would be lost if he could have the three operations he needs to remove loose skin around his midriff, legs and under his arms.

"Around my middle and on my legs the skin keeps splitting because of the weight of it..."
Under Obamacare, if stomach surgery for weight loss is covered by insurance — and I assume political pressure will make that happen — will the skin surgery this man needs also be covered? There will be great sympathy for individuals who find themselves in this horrible predicament, but at the same time, there will be strife over having to pay for this.

42 comments:

ndspinelli said...
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ndspinelli said...
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garage mahal said...

That can't be unseen/

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Don't worry professor...

That's all the way over there...

That kind of thing wouldn't happen here.

Cody Jarrett said...

He's still got a couple of hundred pounds of fat to lose.

A lot of why his skin looks that way is because of the fat.

Cody Jarrett said...

ndspinelli said...

They make head cheese w/ cow and sheep skin, soooo?

and no, not usually.

Mark O said...

I think the Obamacare is directed at reducing care to folks your age, Ann.

Kelly said...

I can never unsee that.

NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...

We should pay any price not to see this.

Anonymous said...

Keep in mind though he weighed almost 1,000 lbs. at his maximum which puts him in Guinness territory.

People who lose a fair amount can develop loose skin but nothing like this guy.

Here's someone who lost over 200 lbs. and tightened up nicely:

http://www.fullreboot.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/the-gabriel-method.jpeg

He's now hawking a weight loss program but so far as I know he did lose that weight and develop that body.

furious_a said...

Don't want to be a fat man
People would say that I was
just good fun
I would rather be a thin man
I am so glad to go on
Being one, yeah

Too much to carry around with you
And no chance of finding a woman who
Will love you in the morning and all the
day time toooooo

I don't want to be a fat man
I have not the patience to ig...
...nore all that
I hate to admit to myself
Half of my problems came from
Being fat

Won't waste my time feeling sorry for him
I've seen the other side to being thin
Roll us both down a mountain and I'm sure the fat man win

edutcher said...

Losing weight is only part of it.

You have to work out to develop the muscle tone you lost.

chickelit said...

He wears the skin he filled in life...he grew it inch by inch...foot by foot; he girded it on of his own free will, and by other's good will will he doff it for good.

Anonymous said...

Of course, every surgery will covered for people who were "victims" of any popular issue. At the same time, "elective" activities resulting in injury will not be covered, thus increasing the government control over individual behavior.

- Ride a bike without a helmet and get injured? Forget you!
- Go skydiving and break a leg landing? Pay for it yourself!
- Get injured making a bomb with your Occupy friends? No problem! Obama's got your back!

test said...

will the skin surgery this man needs also be covered? There will be great sympathy for individuals who find themselves in this horrible predicament, but at the same time, there will be strife over having to pay for this.

Everything will be covered. We'll control costs through a shortage of doctors and facilities.

Bender said...

If the government is going to force me to spend $4000 year on some product I might otherwise choose not to buy, then it damn well better cover everything I want done.

I better damn well get back every penny's worth that I am forced to put in.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...
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David-2 said...

Under Obamacare this man's skin surgery will NOT be covered.

He's English and he lives in England. God knows there's no special relationship with them anymore, so he's screwed.

If he came in illegally through Mexico, though, he could not only get his surgery, but US citizenship would be thrown in too.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

..will the skin surgery this man needs also be covered?

Once Obamacare is forced to pick up the things that can be photographed pressure will be brought to bear to also include the things that cant be photographed.

If its difficult enough (see the Governor Christie exhibit) to create and incentivize the necessary hurdles? to prevent a person from getting this way...

What could possibly go wrong once Obamacare removes some of the cost hurdles?

The logic behind a woman slapping a cop so she could go to jail to quit smoking might takes on new dimensions.

Might someone, for example, eat their way into coverage?

bagoh20 said...

I bet we could afford to help our people like this who actually need help if we didn't waste so much on people who don't. I'm about as anti-tax as they come, but mostly because it's so poorly and criminally used. If I had say over how my taxes were spent, I would allocate substantial portions to subsidize ruinously expensive medical treatments and research into lowing their costs. I would get the money from wasteful subsidies, Solyndra-type fiascoes, and excessive public sector pay and benefits, among other things. Congressional pay and benefits? You betcha!

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Obamacare will incentivize destructive behavior.

But thing of it is is that, we had to eat it in odder to find out what it would do to us.

Ann Althouse said...

"Under Obamacare this man's skin surgery will NOT be covered. He's English and he lives in England. God knows there's no special relationship with them anymore, so he's screwed."

I know. I translated the stone to pounds for you. The question is whether THE SURGERY that he needs, i.e., that his predicament exemplifies, be covered? He's posing for pics. When people like that present here, will we say no? I predict we will NOT.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

I predict we will NOT.

Althouse Predicts Redskins Change Name Before Obamacare Turns Down Cosmetic Surgery.

David-2 said...

Althouse@9:12:

I know you know. I was having fun by taking you literally.

Nobody is sorrier than me that you didn't get the joke. Mistakes were made. If anyone was offended that I did not carefully read your post, or that having done so I strayed from the topic, I apologize.

Paddy O said...

"In cases like this the NHS has a panel of people, including clinicians, who decide whether the patient should have such an operation," a spokesperson said.

Breadth panels!

chickelit said...

It's a shame that skin grafts appear to be so readily rejected between people because otherwise the man could be saving the lives of burn victims and so forth.

There are other uses such as bookbindings and lampshades.

Just trying to be practical.

furious_a said...

Remember that gawd-awful London Olympics opening ceremony Pinewood Studios Salutes the NHS?

I thought instead of sick children dancing on their hosptial beds that octogenarians dying in their wheelchairs while they waited for hip replacement surgery would have been more true-to-life.

rcommal said...

Wouldn't it be nice if it were to be possible to get back the money spent by the federal government on bad nutrition advice (hell, propaganda) that was dispensed over the past few decades and on subsidizing ag industries to generate and propagate products that, like kudzu, perniciously spread and take over.

Freeman Hunt said...

Well, okay, but I don't think you're going to have many people who once weighed 444 kilograms!

Petunia said...

Too bad, buddy. You got that fat entirely off your own efforts and then used the taxpayers to pay for the surgery that was only needed because you refused to control yourself. Why should they be further on the hook for your care?

Go private, do fund-raisers, whatever...but why should the taxpayers pay any more money for YOUR poor lifestyle choice?

Freeman Hunt said...

He weighed 979 pounds! That's such an outlier. It isn't relevant.

Synova said...

The only thing this does for me is tell me that its not worth losing weight, that I won't be "pretty", and that I may as well only work to stay where I currently am.

Bender said...

In fact, if the government is going to require that I spend all that money each year, then every four years or so, they ought to give me a new car.

chickelit said...

He weighed 979 pounds! That's such an outlier. It isn't relevant.

In a sense, that's the challenge. Could plastic surgeons make such an outlier look normal again? They might see it that way. And I suspect that techniques and knowledge would accrue and be transferred to other patients.

The world was not ready for Christine Jorgensen in 1952--"he went abroad and became a broad" as the newspapers said at the time.

Public funding and moral objection are separable.

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Lem the artificially intelligent said...
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Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Go ahead... have all your fun laughter and giggles now... when Obamacare comes, there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

chickelit said...

@Lem: What the French might regard as haute couture, the Germans would call hautkultur.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

I was trying to make a pun and realize it was bleeding / spilling over into other pc topics... making its failure guaranteed.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Puns have to be pin point accurate... or something.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Everything will be covered, everything is free! (after we fleece tax payers)... but please, get in line.
And the HHS might say no.

tough luck.

Renee said...

I have extra skin from pregnancy, it's normal.

You lost the weight, the natural result of losing weight is extra skin.