Should the Government Tax You for Being Overweight?

Penalizing people for being overweight is the natural extension of the socialist philosophy that led first to alcohol prohibition and eventually to the War on Drugs. The principle at work is that you are not an individual who owns his own body and health, but rather a consumer unit owned by the government and society in general.

Anti-drug laws and anti-fat laws both send the same message: you are government property.

As revolting as such laws are to anyone who believes that America should be free like its founders intended, I still strongly advocate that people take care of their health. In the gun community in particular, a lot of people think having good equipment and even being a good shot makes them prepared to deal with any SHTF type of situation. But if you can't even run a couple of miles on a track or treadmill without getting a heart attack, you ain't gonna be running around in the woods with your rifle for very long if things get to that point.
 
The right to keep and bear does not include the right to have it provided for you.

The premise that started this thread was:


And if our country adopts a national health care system soon, will not something like this then become mandatory here too? The government will need to control costs, so why not tax those who are at greater risk for poor health??
Click to expand...

You have a right to have equal access to healthcare, but you do not have the right to have that access for free.
 
This entire thread is based on a flawed premise:

That Americans have a right to healthcare.
Click to expand...

No, it wasn't. It was started based on some video from Japan.

So, your point is different. You are saying Americans don't have a "right" to health care.

True enough.

Americans also don't have a "right" to roads and highways, schools, police and fire departments, a military of any particular size...lots of things.

The issue is, of course, what we want to get together to provide one another because it is in our interest to do so.
 
The reason this won't happen is it doesn't make sense. Long term we save money who die shortly after leaving the work force. Goto McDonalds and buy a pack of cigarettes for you country.

http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2008/02/05/health-reform-and-the-high-cost-of-healthy-living/

ealth Reform and the High Cost of Healthy Living
Posted by Jacob Goldstein

We’d be a healthier nation if we slimmed down. But cutting the obesity rate could actually lead to higher overall health costs, an analysis published in PLoS Medicine suggests. That may come as a surprise to top presidential candidates, who talk both about cutting health-care costs and fighting obesity.

Dutch researchers simulated lifetime costs, starting at age 20, for smokers, the obese, and a “healthy living” cohort that maintained a healthy weight and didn’t smoke. The average lifetime costs of certain diseases were higher for the unhealthy — smokers are more likely to get lung cancer, the obese more likely to become diabetic.

But the healthy living 20 year olds could expect to live to about age 84, compared with age 77 for the smokers and 80 for the obese. Those additional years can be expensive: For healthy 20 year olds, the remaining lifetime health care costs over $400,000, compared with $365,000 for the obese and $321,000 for the smokers.

These figures are based on costs in the Dutch health care system, so they can’t be applied directly to the U.S. (And besides, this is a rough estimate based on models.) Still, with everybody in the thrall of Superduper Tuesday fever, it’s worth noting that presidential candidates in both parties like to talk both about cutting costs and fighting obesity.

Clinton, for example, notes that “had the prevalence of obesity remained the same today as it was in 1987, we would spend 10 percent less per person — approximately $200 billion — on health care today.” McCain and Obama both call obesity an “epidemic,” and both place great emphasis on lowering health care costs.

They’re right to focus on obesity as a great threat to public health in this country. But, perversely, reducing obesity and the burden of disease it causes may wind up costing the nation more, not less.

As the researchers conclude: “A remaining and most important question is whether prevention should be cost-saving in order to be attractive. Obviously, the answer is that it need not be cost-saving: like other forms of care it ‘merely’ needs to be cost-effective.”
Click to expand...
 
Quoted by YukonKid:
I am not talking about any massive tax, just a few dollars more to be put towards orphanages or something like that. I think that the overweight standards should be set by body fat %.
Click to expand...

While your idea in theory wouldn't be a bad idea, in practice administered by the government would ultimately be a disaster.

Take a look at Social Security. IIRC, it was set up to SUPPLEMENT Americans when nearing retirement. A few bucks here, a few bucks there. Now, fast forward to today. Many, many of the baby boomers and prior generation have assumed it to be a PRIMARY means of income for retirement. The government dumped more and more promises in preserving it for generations to come. We and our companies end up paying more and more into the system. Why? Because Americans didn't plan on relying on other sources of income and didn't save. More importantly, the goverment raided the funds to pay for other programs. Now, the system is broken.

If the Federal Government can't even promise to leave one simple program that's pretty straight forward alone, how can we trust giving just a few dollars on yet another tax?

My other point of disagreement is that your statement is just a simplistic form of socialism. You're taking money from a citizen that he/she earned and giving it to another program/charity. It's the early stage of a seven headed monster of what I call "income redistribution".

Let me make one thing clear. I, by no means think your idea is stupid nor do I think the intent is malicious. I just think that quite a few government "programs" started out with, "My fellow Americans, we only need to tax a small amount to give a big boost to this wonderful cause"...
 
I had always suspected that the health care cost impact of smoking was a net gain, if all factors are considered. Early death avoids many of the diseases of the elderly. Kind of undercuts the primary thesis of the ginormous "tobacco settlement", eh? Wait for big tobacco to seek reparations from society. :eek:

Taken a step further, imagine the impact when someone perfects the cancer cure, or any of the other magic bullets, like super-resveratrol that Ray Kurzweil says are waiting in the wings. Bump up the average life expectancy to well over 100 years. (I'm taking resveratrol now, with good results :))

Surely, the actuaries will freak out, at the prospect of paying on 40 year retirements! Of course, big government will probably tax the inventors to cover increased costs. :(
 
I don't think you should tax people for being overweight. But, if such things get enacted it would be better to require students who have gotten tax payer funded education, and yet don't graduate high school with a certain GPA (lets say a B average) should be required to reimburse taxpayers for the cost of their education because they wasted taxpayer money.
 
No.

I didn't read through the 3 pages of replies; but I thought they proved that a healthier person cost more over a lifetime because they live so much longer?
 
Where does this stuff come from?

Where did health insurance as a worker benefit come from? How about WWII, and the US govt. Oh, not entirely, but they gave it a huge boost. During WW II, the US govt froze wages and prices, laong with the rationing everyone remembers. Businesses had to find some way to compete for the available workers. Since many men were gone off to war, and the available pool was small, they hired women for many jobs that previously had been done only by men.

Since wages were frozen by law, how could a business attract top quality (men) employees? Skilled workers were at a premium, and since they couldn't offer more money, they began offering benefits. Health insurance as one primary benefit.

After wages were "thawed" and companies could offer more money as incentive for workers, they learned that health care insurance was still a big incentive, and often cost the companies less than paying higher wages. Not everyone uses all their benefits. Unused benefits are profit for the company.

With health insurance footing the bill, people would go to doctors more often, and more easily. With health care insurance footing the bill, the cost of medicine climbed, at a rate far outstripping any other "consumer" item or service. And so we found ourselves firmly attached to an upward spiral of medical costs, insurance costs, and insurance companies taking the authority to determine which claims were valid medical needs, in order to control their costs. Spin this spiral for half a century plus, and here we are today. Medical costs have risen to the point where ordinary working class people cannot afford to pay for health care on their own, beyond the most minor illnesses or injuries.

We have had medical insurance available to the majority of the workforce for so long now, that lots of people believe that it must be a right. Everybody needs it, and except for the ultra poor, everybody has it, and for those poor, the govt provides it. People and politicians talk about the right to medical care, therefore, it must be a right. Well, it isn't. And it never was. Nor should it be considered one.

For those who think that government run medicine (or at least the payment system for medicine) is a good idea because it means you will pay less out of your pocket to visit the doctor, you can look at other countries where they have socialized medicine. Look and see how they have shortages of doctors, nurses, and other health care professionals. Look and see how sick people are put on waiting lists, or denied care all together to make the system more efficient. Look and see how many people who can afford it leave those countries and come here for medical treatment. Take off the rose colored glasses and see things as they really are.

Or, you don't even have to look at other countries, you can just look at this one. If you think govt controlled medicine is a good thing, go and talk to some vet about VA medicine. That's run by our government. Look what a fine job they do.

And anyone notice that a few years back those people who make up the figures that determine what is, and is not "obese" adjusted them downward? Ever since then, we have had an "epidemic of obesity" in this country! Why, all of a sudden did this happen? Maybe because of a change in the definition of the term. A whole segment of our population that was merely "overweight" is now considered "obese".

Why should we allow a tax on our bodies? We are taxed on what we make. We are taxed on what we spend. We are taxed on what we own. We are even taxed on what we do not own. Why in hell should we be taxed on what we ARE?! Or is it that we are to be taxed on what we are not?

A government that takes the power to tax us on what we are, or aren't, has the power to change their definitions at will. What feature will we be taxed on next? Skin color? It isn't a huge step from there to gas chambers and ovens. It all depends on who gets in power, and who they happen to hate. Today it appears to be those "obese" individuals, because they cost us more, take up more space, use more resources...etc...

I wonder who it will be tomorrow...and the day after that.
 
Yukonkid wrote:

Derius_T, you sir seem to be very bitter about this issue. I realize that we all have differing opinions and that yours and mine happen to be at opposite ends of the spectrum.
Click to expand...

It's not that I'm perticularly bitter about this subject, but about people going out of their way to HAND the government MORE CONTROL of their lives for no good reason. God, haven't they taken enough freedoms?

Now I can't be fat?

Where does it stop I ask you? Today I can't be fat, tomorrow I can't speak my mind, then I can't be black, or red, can't be Christian, can't have guns......see?
 
If they tax tubbies, will Teddy Kennedy have to pay? Inquiring minds want to know ...

nothing my govt. does surprises me ... stuff like this is why we need term limits; at least these boobs would only have a few years to work their mischief, not a lifetime ...
 
Anyone want to bet on which group is fatter.....those with jobs or those who receive food stamps paid for by those with jobs.

Based on my unscientific observations in the grocery store check-out line we might be surprised to find that government, by way of it's tax-funded food distribution schemes, is massively to blame of our nation's overweight problem.

Let's look at that little project first.

Best

S-
 
If they tax tubbies, will Teddy Kennedy have to pay? Inquiring minds want to know ...
Click to expand...
Good point. If there's a tax on being overweight, most members of Congress will go broke.

Oh wait, they live by different rules from the rest of us, so the tax won't apply to them. They'll simply tell the rest of us how to live and decide how being overweight is defined. And redefined a few years later, when the costs of government healthcare start spiralling out of control.

Welcome to universal healthcare, which covers everyone the government deems worthy of covering.
 
Does the government OWN ME LIKE A SLAVE?

**** NO!

The people who suggest this garbage need to be driven out of the government.
 
if my taxes are paying for your healthcare while you smoke,drink, eat mcdonalds everyday, have high blood pressure, diabetes, sleep apnea which requires you to have continous positive airway pressure device etc. in which my taxes would pay for hell yeah the government should tax you.
 
How about Medical Savings accounts, non taxed, but only to be used for medical procedures. Paying your own way as it were, people would shop smarter for procedures, they would keep themselves healthier and if the dont use the money it can return to them at some point. A know a novel concept paying your own way, but hey lets try something radical for a change.


actually they exist i have one with my high deductible health plan, works like a 401k, i can choose to invest it as well, or stick it in a different account like a savings account. instead of throwing $900 a year down the drain for my health plan i take the extra risk of having to use "my savings account" but the money is mine as ooposed to the other plan where everything is paid for but that $900 is pocketed if don't need to go see doctors.

i pay the first $1000, after that everything is free. regular checkups are not subject to the deductible, as well as routine shots, mammograms for women etc.
 
But the Japanese are really smart people, right? This thus must be the right thing to do, no??

After all, look at how Honda and Toyota are doing right now, compared to GM and Ford, which ware both nearing bankruptcy.

Or could the Japanese have made a mistake here? They have completely outlawed all handgun ownership, too, by the way. Is there perhaps a pattern of government control at work in Japan??

.
 
Could the Japanese have made a mistake?

Well they did at Pearl Harbor!

Just because they think it a good idea doesn't mean it is. For them, or for us.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top