Obese Man Sues Government for Failing to Help Him

When the fat expect the rest of us to pay for their diseases of choice, this is what happens.

A British man who once tipped the scales at nearly 1,000 pounds is suing Britain’s National Health Service (NHS), claiming that they failed to heed his cries for help as far back as 1996.

Paul Mason, who at one time held the title of world’s fattest man, says he began eating 24 hours a day after an unexpected breakup in his mid-20s. By 1996, he had reached 420 pounds, and begged the NHS for help. An agency doctor advised him to “ride your bike more.”

In the decade that followed, his weight climbed to over 900 pounds, until he finally opted for life-saving gastric bypass surgery last year. He has since slimmed down to a more manageable 500 pounds.

Mason’s beef with the NHS is that they didn’t identify his problem as a clinical eating disorder; instead, they merely told him that he needed to exercise and lose weight.

Mason, 50, says his suit is intended to spur the agency to help others similarly situated -- before it is too late.

“I want to set a precedent so no one else has to get to the same size -- and to put something back into society,” Mason told The Sun recently.

Mason says that, at his heaviest, he was eating 20,000 calories per day -- almost ten times the recommended amount for a man his age. His health care costs over the last 15 years are estimated at around 1 million pounds -- that’s $1.5 million, or around $2,000 per week. According to The New York Daily News, that figure doesn’t include his $50,000 gastric bypass surgery or the cost of firefighters breaking down his door to get him out for hernia surgery.

The firefighters probably needed hernia surgery, too.

In any event, not a penny extra should be spent caring for fatso illnesses of choice.

Let them pay the difference.

But, if there is a "need" for society to underwrite some costs for fatsos, then consider these: