perfectly said
http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexcha…
I’m stuck on the first claim. Why exactly is obesity a public health issue? Well, when, by force of law, you externalize responsibility for providing a good, such as health care, then the effects of all individual choices that affect the cost of providing that good for the individual are thereby transformed from internal to external effects. If you, like Mr Dubois, are in the grip of the blithe assumption that reducing negative externalities by raising the cost of the behavior that causes them is simply what government does, then obviously my gluttony and sloth are public problems. Because public policy made them public problems! So, obviously, it’s up to the government to fiddle with prices to manipulate our behavior in order to minimise its impact on the tax-financed national budget.
This sort of thing drives me crazy because it’s just so thoughtlessly arbitrary — intellectual empty calories. Why specifically a tax on junk food? Yes, one of the causes of obesity is “the consumption of too many calories.” Another is the failure to burn the calories one consumes. So why not levy huge fines on people for not showing up at “voluntary” government-funded yogalates classes? Or if people are consuming too many calories, then just put a tax on calories. Why tax some calories but not others? You can get fat eating steak, too. Maybe a national “cap and trade” system of calorie credits would do the trick. Hey, do you know who’s healthy? Mormons are. Maybe the government should provide giant tax credits for being Mormon. Or perhaps it would be easier if the national health care system could just deny services for ailments it judged to be obesity-related. You could even decide not have a national health care system at all and allow insurance premiums to reflect the actuarial risk of individual behavior! But that would be crazy.
Dang, the Economist just nails it sometimes.
Perfectly said.
If the government is going to use policy to discourage things that might impact one’s health, then we need, just to start:
- a tax on calories
- a tax on homosexual sex
- …and, heck, casual sex of all varieties
- a tax on bicycle riding
- a tax on mountain climbing
- a tax on using a chainsaw
- a tax on mothers who invite boyfriends into their homes while the children are there
- a tax on NOT walking at least a mile a day
- a tax on shoveling your snow in the winter
- a tax on woodworking
- a tax on living in a poor neighborhood
- a tax on becoming pregnant
- a tax on living in a house with more than one story (stairs!)
- a tax on beekeepers
- a tax on taking showers (shower just twice a week, and that’s five less chances to slip)
- a tax on downhill skiing
- …
Of course, progressives would blow up on about 99% of these “what about freedom !?!? ; what about a person’s right to choose?!?!”.
Yes, exactly.
What makes your sin tax any more legitimate than someone else’s?
The answer you’d get would revolve around phrases like “common sense” and “obvious problem”.
That reduces the question to an engineering one, when it is in fact a deontological one.
If you want to say that we can’t tax downhill skiing, or mountain climbing, or anal sex because of “rights”, then you can’t make an argument in favor of taxing junk food on “pragmatism” – it’s one or the other.
If “rights” are the issue, then you can’t do any of these things.
If “pragmatism” is the issue, then it’s an engineering challenge, and we have to sit down and rank order the benefit per unit cost and then start making things illegal.
I, for one, think that “rights” are the issue.
October 18th, 2007 at 10:22 am
“a tax on homosexual sex ”
sure, ’cause there were no STDs before the gays got their paws on sex, god damn them!
October 18th, 2007 at 11:10 am
[quote comment="91348"]“a tax on homosexual sex ”
sure, ’cause there were no STDs before the gays got their paws on sex, god damn them![/quote]
I think it’s pretty unambiguous that promiscuous sex is more hazardous than monogamous sex, that anal sex is more hazardous than vaginal sex, etc.
Note that I listed 16 hazardous activities, 15 of them likely to be engaged in by homosexuals, and 15 of them likely to be engaged in by heterosexuals.
My point is not to call out homosexual sex specifically.
My point is to call out homosexual sex and TONS OF OTHER THINGS THAT FREE PEOPLE HAVE A RIGHT TO DO as activities that a government could “legitimately” ban for safety reasons, if we grant government the right to ban things for safety reasons.
I stand by that 100%.
October 18th, 2007 at 1:52 pm
Come on now. Not all homosexual sex is promiscuous sex. Other than that, I agree with this…but it’s interesting. If you consider that whether we like it or not, we are going to be required to pay taxes into systems that provide healthcare to people who are sick, and some of those people are sick because they made themselves obese, or got themselves addicted to cigarettes, or acquired AIDS through recreational drug use, then isn’t there a glimmer of logic to penalizing people who willingly engage in these types of behaviors? I agree that people should have the right to do what they want with their own bodies; however, I don’t like the idea that I have to pay for the consequences of other people’s bad choices.
October 18th, 2007 at 3:00 pm
[quote comment="91376"]Come on now. Not all homosexual sex is promiscuous sex. [/quote]
Woah-ho-ho! Where did I ever say that it was?
I’ve had a few gay friends in my time, and while some of them may have had promiscuous episodes before I knew them, every one was monogamous when I knew them. So I’d certainly not be likely to say what you assert I said.
October 18th, 2007 at 3:02 pm
[quote comment="91376"] we are going to be required to pay taxes into systems that provide healthcare to people who are sick, and some of those people are sick because they made themselves obese, or got themselves addicted to cigarettes, or acquired AIDS through recreational drug use, then isn’t there a glimmer of logic to penalizing people who willingly engage in these types of behaviors? [/quote]
No.
First, we should not be compelled to pay for any of those people (and, obviously, I am “one of those people” and I note that it would be entirely immoral for me to take, or be complicit in the taking, of any of your money against your will).
Second, two wrongs do not make a right. Even if we get socialized medicine, we should not use that to justify restricting other freedoms.
October 18th, 2007 at 3:35 pm
Here’s something that is interesting about people who argue that we need more laws addressing public health concerns that arise from voluntary behavior. Using obesity as an example, ask a proponent of government mandated anti-obesity measures if he is in favor of higher insurance rates for obese people. Most times the answer will be no. The obese person is a “victim” and shouldn’t be personally punished. So the argument is that everyone EXCEPT the responsible party should pay.
October 18th, 2007 at 4:14 pm
But this isn’t about what we should be compelled to do–in reality, we have to do it. We have to pay into Medicare and Medicaid, etc. We also pay into health insurance that gets used by a pool of other people who pay into it. This money gets divvied up in some really unfair ways sometimes. So since that’s true, and since someday there comes a point where there are X dollars left and that money has to be given to one person instead of another, I think the issue of personal accountability comes into play.
Now obviously taxing junk food doesn’t make any sense, and doesn’t speak to this problem. You can be unhealthy without eating junk food, and you can eat junk food without being unhealthy, etc, so taxing any one product or activity isn’t fair to anyone. But I think the underlying concept of certain people paying more into an insurance system (since we’re all already paying anyway) is pretty ethical, when seen in the context of how things actually work today.
October 18th, 2007 at 7:50 pm
Of course there is. It’s obvious.
And it’s why we shouldn’t have a National Health Service even if everyone agrees that a NHS would provide better care for lower costs, provided by happier and better-paid health-care workers. Because then there’s an obvious justification for laws regulating behaviors that drive healthcare costs, and as few physical behaviors don’t affect health, it’s an open door for regulating EVERYTHING.
Now, it’s also true that once you accept the premise “it’s okay to regulate behaviors based on their impact on the government’s incoming / outgoing cashflows”, you don’t really need a NHS to start justifying regulations on just about anything.
It’s just that getting to the point of accepting government-cost-driven regulation seems a lot easier for most people when it involves health-care costs.
October 23rd, 2007 at 11:02 am
How about dropping the subsidy on corn? No more cheap high-fructose corn syrup, no more cheap junk food…
If there can be a tobacco tax, a alcohol tax, why not a soda tax? Rots your teeth (of course, then there would be a whole — oh, no, THIS isn’t SODA argument).
October 23rd, 2007 at 11:04 am
How WOULD you tax anal sex? Per event? Per day? Have a license that you have to renew?
I’d love a pregnancy tax… or at least some forms you had to fill out.
October 23rd, 2007 at 11:10 am
[quote comment="92646"]How WOULD you tax anal sex? Per event? Per day? Have a license that you have to renew?
I’d love a pregnancy tax… or at least some forms you had to fill out.[/quote]
With digital cash, digital certificates, access control lists, and technology, clearly!
October 23rd, 2007 at 11:40 am
Ah, then a license, then. Would there be a vision requirement?