Sickies

Just wondering why I and my family don't ever seem to be seriously ill.  Probably tempting fate here, but none of our family have required hospital treatment, excepting childbirth, pretty well ever.  I did go in for one night's observation as a teenager when I fell off my bike, but that's about it.  Oh, and treatment for depression - I'm undoubtedly rationalising, but somehow I don't see that as a physical illness.
Other families I know seem to be taking their kids up to the hospital every other week.  Many of my friends and in laws have a variety of ongoing and one off health problems, some without positive diagnosis.
Some of this is undoubtedly just the luck of the draw, but I do wonder if some of these people are verging on hypochondria, taking their kids to hospital for every little thing, and I do wonder if there's a genetic element in a tendency to either get ill or maybe even have accidents.
This isn't one of those things with a definite answer.  Personal attitudes, lifestyle and upbringing must influence whether we get ill, have accidents, and how we respond to these life events.
There's suggestions in the newspapers that very obese children should be taken into foster care to sort their obesity - and related health problems - out.  It does raise the wider question of whether the state has the right to interfere with our lifestyles where it results in a cost to the state, the NHS in this case.
Maybe a better solution would be for anyone with an unhealthy or risky lifestyle to be required to buy insurance to pay the extra costs.  It does seem unfair that individuals who look after themselves are required to contribute to the care of those who don't.  By extrapolation, others who cost the country cash should also be required to pay - get criminals to repay all the costs of bringing them to justice, compensation to victims (& repay insurance payouts) and their stay in prison.
Just think how complex the politicians could make the systems if they went down this route.  Jobs for the whole population just sorting it all out and chasing non payers!
As always it would probably end up in those with assets being penalised, and the workshy and unprudent getting off scot free.  Another subject for another day, but I'm now defined as 'below the poverty line'... and doing fine thank you.