Should Taxes Be Raised On Citizens Who Smoke or are Obese?

obvious Child said:

Ah but your beliefs require it. You want no government programs to exist that will help those who fall on hard times. You want no government programs to exist to help people save money for the future. You want essentially no government anywhere to incentivize people to do certain behaviors or help people at all. You essentially want a government that will let you die in the streets homeless for potential reasons that you had no control over. And you want no government programs to help people prevent themselves from ending up there at all. Essentially you want no social services outside of firefighters and police (and even then that's questionable as you are against being forced to pay taxes to pay for services others use). Granted, not entirely like 1990s Somalia, but that's the closest thing.

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I'm not for government running fire protection. Oh, and you didn't describe anarchy or 1990's Somalia, drama boy. Consider your attempt another FAIL.

And I'm against anything not going towards protecting the rights and liberties of people. Clearly, fire protection doesn't do that and so it has no place in my philosophy.

Taxes? No. Health insurance costs? Yes.

ReformCollege said:

Taxes don't need to be raised on them. They just need to be charged higher healthcare premiums.

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Smokers began paying more for their insurance over a year ago at my workplace.

Unlike smoking, though, there are so many reasons people gain weight--limited mobility because of permanent physical disabilities, inability to eat other than soft foods, and other reasons that would make increasing their taxes unjustly punitive, IMO.

nota bene said:

Smokers began paying more for their insurance over a year ago at my workplace.

Unlike smoking, though, there are so many reasons people gain weight--limited mobility because of permanent physical disabilities, inability to eat other than soft foods, and other reasons that would make increasing their taxes unjustly punitive, IMO.

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Those are a million reasons why they gain weight by eating too much, however those reasons make up a small overall percentage of the actual cases.

Its less about justly or unjustly, I just think individuals should have to pay for their own risk of heart attack.

Against the majority, I will vote that taxes be increased on the fatties.
Sugar, all sugars are the problem, and these should be taxed, and those monies be used in anti-sugar commercials.
Much like the successful(more or less) anti-smoking ads..from the previous century.
And the tobacco taxes should be increased...that money used to clean up the mess from discarded cigarettes..

Henrin said:

No, the government should not be meddling in the market to get the results it wants be that peoples buying decisions or anything else.

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Then you favor the head in the sand approach...and small, do nothing ,government.
Overweight people are a problem.

TurtleDude said:

the answer is clearly NO because other tax payers shouldn't be taxed with caring for those who engage in unhealthy behavior. Rather they should pay insurance rates based on their risky behavior.

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What I favor is the tax on the cigarettes and sugar, NOT another tax on the people.
Also, no insurance either, only another tax on the people for health care...much like todays social security..

joko104 said:

Medical care costs versus total-life costs to the government are not the same at all. A smoker dying in age 60s of a smoking disease is a big medical expense. BUT a person dying of "natural causes" in their 90s cost the government/taxpayers a whole lot more - including 3 decades of social security and medicare/caid, plus their other old age ailments.

Thus, under this theory of costs-per-costs-of-the-person, really there should be an old-age tax in which a person's tax rate goes up every birthday.

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Actually, the analog to MarineTPartier's proposal isn't an age tax. It would actually be a tax on non-smokers rather than on smokers, as well as a tax on healthy weighted people rather than on overweight or underweight people. This is indeed where the criteria for taxation that he proposes leads.

Insurance companies should be allowed to charge for whatever they want as far as risks. If a fat person is riskier from their perspective, make it a surcharge. If a mountain climber health nut is riskier, make it a surcharge. And so forth.

nota bene said:

Smokers began paying more for their insurance over a year ago at my workplace.

Unlike smoking, though, there are so many reasons people gain weight--limited mobility because of permanent physical disabilities, inability to eat other than soft foods, and other reasons that would make increasing their taxes unjustly punitive, IMO.

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People use ten times the sugar that they should....I think a "sin-tax" on sugar (all sugars) is a good idea.

earthworm said:

Then you favor the head in the sand approach...and small, do nothing ,government.
Overweight people are a problem.

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Overweight people is a problem the people should solve. The government does not have the duty to make sure everyone is eating right or is in shape or for that matter is healthy.

earthworm said:

People use ten times the sugar that they should....I think a "sin-tax" on sugar (all sugars) is a good idea.

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I agree with this, as well as a tax on sodium, artificial sweeteners and anything else that is shown to be alluring and bad for you. I have high blood pressure and it is very difficult to find foods low in sodium. I am making a lot of my own food now (instead of canned foods etc), in order to try to avoid having to take blood pressure medication. It is difficult to do this. High Blood pressure is epidemic. We are just feeding treasure to pharmaceuticals because we don't make the food industry behave itself.

Taxes? No. Healthcare Premiums? You're damn right they should be raised.

Dezaad said:

I agree with this, as well as a tax on sodium, artificial sweeteners and anything else that is shown to be alluring and bad for you. I have high blood pressure and it is very difficult to find foods low in sodium. I am making a lot of my own food now (instead of canned foods etc), in order to try to avoid having to take blood pressure medication. It is difficult to do this. High Blood pressure is epidemic. We are just feeding treasure to pharmaceuticals because we don't make the food industry behave itself.

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because you are too lazy to make your own food you think everyone else should pay more? Seriously this is just a money grab by the govt that will hurt the poor the most. making your own food is better for you and paying more for a can of premade soup will not make you healthier. Sorry to hear you have high blood pressure but taxing everyone else will not help you.

joko104 said:

OBVIOUSLY you should pay a smokers tax.
Also, you should pay an Ex-military tax as on average ex-military have shorter life spans.
Finally, if you are 5% under or 5% over your optimum weight at any point in your life, you should pay a "wrong weight" tax.
And, of course, you should pay the "being male" tax surcharge too.

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Sort of like how my car insurance goes up for being a male 16-24 years of age? And if I get a speeding ticket, it will most likely go up another 50%?


Also, males actually use less healthcare then females, so your last one is a little silly. Not to mention, being 5% over or under isn't as big of a risk as being 50% over or under. And we even have those who are as much as 100-200% over their ideal weight. I certainly don't want to be subsidizing their lifestyle in any way, shape, or form; including healthcare.

on smokers, yes. On the obese, no.

For one thing, smoking is a behavior, and one that is absolutely NOT necessary, is even contrary, for human life. However, people HAVE to eat, which makes battling obesity, often a genetic matter, much more difficult to combat than smoking. Also, obese people pose no health risk to others, while smokers do.

Quag said:

because you are too lazy to make your own food you think everyone else should pay more? Seriously this is just a money grab by the govt that will hurt the poor the most. making your own food is better for you and paying more for a can of premade soup will not make you healthier. Sorry to hear you have high blood pressure but taxing everyone else will not help you.

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I would hardly call a person who is so busy that they would like to preserve their time for things other than cooking "lazy", but spin it whatever way you like.

As for the other matters, causing prepared foods to be better for us isn't a bad thing. You act like it would be.

Dezaad said:

I would hardly call a person who is so busy that they would like to preserve their time for things other than cooking "lazy", but spin it whatever way you like.

As for the other matters, causing prepared foods to be better for us isn't a bad thing. You act like it would be.

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Putting taxes on them is not making them better for anyone just more expensive. As to you being lazy, really cooking take so little time if you know how to do it (which anyone can learn if they put even a small bit of effort into it) the only explanation for not doing it is lazyness.

Quag said:

Putting taxes on them is not making them better for anyone just more expensive. As to you being lazy, really cooking take so little time if you know how to do it (which anyone can learn if they put even a small bit of effort into it) the only explanation for not doing it is lazyness.

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Oh, please, you just want to be able to say that I am lazy. Regardless, I wasn't trying to make this personal to me for my own sake, I was trying to illustrate from personal experience, and it does hold despite your lame attempts at personal attacks. I am certainly not going to justify my time budgeting to you (any further), despite your attempts to draw the discussion in such an irrelevant direction.

As to it being more expensive as 'opposed' to becoming better. They are not mutually exclusive. Making them more expensive is the means to making better alternatives more attractive, and thereby creating an environment where healthier alternatives will survive in the marketplace because they are cheaper than the unhealthy ones, and are just as convenient. In such a case, a person's grocery bill would not go up, as long as they ate healthier. And people who wanted to eat healthier in the first place would have more choices.

Now, you can bemoan the useless freedom to eat unhealthy being infringed, but I think I don't really care about that freedom much.

I agree the laziness is just an aside but you tried to make this personal about you, I didnt start that, still it is irrelevant to the situation.

As to taxing making things helatheir please! It makes it more expensive, chocolate bars will still have lots of sugar or no one will buy them cause they taste like crap. You can already buy salted or unsalted peanuts, guess which one sells more? If you want to pass laws requiring healthier pre-made foods that will actually do something but as long as there is a choice the saltier/sugurier foods will still be chosen more often, because people prefer the taste. Unless you want to hugely increase the taxes on them which will just create a black market or have peopel addign their own sugar/salt taxing "junk food" will only hurt the poorest who cannot afford it and have 0 impact on the quality of food. Canada tried that with cigarettes big taxes on them, guess what suddenly there was a massive illegal cigarette industry. eventually they dropped the taxes (mostly because their revenues were going down from forementionmed illegal activities) and the smuggling also died downa lot.


Dream worlds where taxing changes peoples habits do not exist in reality, people will just look for ways around the taxes and hold the govt in even lower regard than they do now.

This is not about freedom to eat unhealthy it is about an inane idea that somehow taxing certain foods will cause them to become healthier.

Not just no on these, but all "sin" taxes (although the liberal anti-religion stand probably doesn't use that term). All such taxes are designed to socially engineer society in a "desired" direction. Just another implementation of the socialist nanny state mentality.

This is actually disturbing:

Because it's not just about them, say some health economists, bioethicists and public health researchers.
"Your freedom is likely to be someone else's harm," said Daniel Callahan, senior research scholar at a bioethics think-tank, the Hastings Center.

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So - really - anything and everything you do in your personal life might affect someone else at some point (the plumber might have to come over more often, the neighbor down the street might have to deal with a bit more water in their yard when you do landscaping)

So really - if there's a 'trickle down affect' to your personal activities that might at some point affect how someone else conducts their day then it's well within reason to regulate it.

That is a very disturbing thought process - it's essentially saying that 'you have no personal freedom at all.'

Because I don't see *myself* as being directly affected by a smoker unless they smoke around routinely - or someone who's obese when they eat near me . . . I can't fathom anything they could do amid continuing to smoke and continuing to be obese that'll make me feel I'm being inhibited by their activities.

Taxes and the cost of healthcare? They will tax me regardless - I will cover the cost of healthcare regardless - I don't see them proposing how to 'actually cut the personal costs if we regulate smoker's and their habits and tax them more' - so even that (taxes ,fee, etc) doesn't affect me. I won't be saving $50.00 a month even if the state brings in more from smokers and eaters.

Which - by the way - is the #1 reason to tax anything . . . the state sees the financial benefit and goes 'holy **** - a goldmine of $1B a year! We can't pass that up) . . . that is their #1 concern.

So I disagree - and find it disturbing that this is now the new excuse to dictate what concern the government has with people's lives.

I'm a soda addict and a coffee drinker - at some point in buying my coffee grounds, creamer and sugar I'm positively affecting society by providing someone a job. (see - the quoted thought process can be twisted)

How much does the economy benefit from people overeating? Needing sleep meds? Smoking? Etc - how many jobs are secured in all these related industries?

In fact - I'll wager that the profit of these related industries are far more than the cost in possible healthcare. . . even the states themselves want to get in on the profit margin which just proves my point.