I'm not entirely sure who wins here. The prescription doesn't mean much aside from that insurance will pay fitness-related bills. But exercise doesn't have to cost anything. Even in the most unwalkable cities there's some place you can go to just walk around in.
And who wouldn't doctors prescribe exercise to. If someone comes asking their doctor for an exercise prescription so that they can get a free gym membership, there's no reason for the doctor to say no (save for cases where the patient has a heart disease or similar where regular exercise is inadvisable). Not only will it not hurt the patient, it'll in fact help them. It will also help the doctor as it will help present them as someone who listens to patients and it helps fill appointments.
If this becomes widespread, the result will be more expensive insurance (or in Quebec, higher taxes) and more expensive fitness programs.
It helps a lot to have a trainer. In fact we should be paying for gym and fitness trainers for pretty much anyone who wants it. The benefits are extraordinary especially in Canada where we all pay for everyone's healthcare.
Yes exercise costs nothing. But it is often repetitive and boring. And in Canada it's cold 1/2 the year so having some place indoors is very helpful and having it paid for is even more encouraging.
We need to make exercise free, fun, and with trainers that work with people. It needs to be like gym in school on days where the gym teacher didn't have a stick up his/her ass... for anyone at any age.
The business model of a gym requires that 90% or so of the members never actually show up. The rates charged would have to go up enormously if they did.
An awful lot of garages have a treadmill in the corner buried under other junk, as the resident's good intentions to get in shape inevitably evaporated.
Even if you made it free, most people still would not show up. But baby steps. Healthcare costs are huge and so are economic costs of sick employees, if they are diverted towards gyms, not much will be lost and much will be gained.
> fitness trainers for pretty much anyone who wants it
Oh god, yes! I did not realise how much difference it makes. Even just having the time scheduled on the days you'd rather do something else is really helpful. But a person to actually tell you what to do, or just chat with you makes the whole experience N times less boring.
> It helps a lot to have a trainer. In fact we should be paying for gym and fitness trainers for pretty much anyone who wants it. The benefits are extraordinary especially in Canada where we all pay for everyone's healthcare.
This mindset that the government should be spending tax revenue on anything beneficial is bizarre.
> This mindset that the government should be spending tax revenue on anything beneficial is bizarre.
Anything? Did they say that? Health care of citizens is not "anything", it is a very imporant thing. More important than military, guns, flying to the moon, and many other things. So yes, they should be spending the hell of out of that tax revenue to keeps citizens healthy, productive and not have hundreds of millions of chronically sick patients all needing hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of care every couple of years.
There's a pretty clear potential for overall net savings, if the cost of providing citizens access to fitness programs is less than the cost of providing additional healthcare to those citizens if they remain sedentary.
And who wouldn't doctors prescribe exercise to. If someone comes asking their doctor for an exercise prescription so that they can get a free gym membership, there's no reason for the doctor to say no (save for cases where the patient has a heart disease or similar where regular exercise is inadvisable). Not only will it not hurt the patient, it'll in fact help them. It will also help the doctor as it will help present them as someone who listens to patients and it helps fill appointments.
If this becomes widespread, the result will be more expensive insurance (or in Quebec, higher taxes) and more expensive fitness programs.