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California City May Tax Sugary Drinks Like Cigarettes
Hugh Pickens writes "Voters in Richmond, California are set to decide in November whether to make the Bay Area city the nation's first municipality to tax soda and other sugary beverages to help fight childhood obesity. The penny-per-ounce tax, projected to raise between $2 million and $8 million, would go to soccer fields, school gardens and programs to treat diabetes and fight obesity. Councilman Jeff Ritterman, a doctor who proposed the measure, says soda is a prime culprit behind high childhood obesity rates in Richmond, where nearly 20 percent of residents live below the poverty line. 'If you look at where most of our added sugar is coming, it's coming from the sugar-sweetened beverages,' says Ritterman. 'It's actually a poison for you, because your liver can't handle that huge amount of fructose.' Not everyone is pleased by the proposed license fee on businesses selling sweetened drinks. It would require owners of bodegas, theaters, convenience stores and other outlets to tally ounces sold and, presumably, pass the cost on to customers. Soda taxes have failed elsewhere — most notably in Philadelphia, where Mayor Michael A. Nutter's attempts to impose a 2-cents-per-ounce charge on sugary drinks have sputtered twice. However, Dr. Bibbins-Domingo says similar taxes on cigarettes have had a dramatic effect on public health. 'It was a few decades ago when we had high rates of tobacco and we had high rates of tobacco-related illnesses. Those measures really turned the tide and really led to lower rates of tobacco across the country.'"
It's nice to see so many cities are willing to help us out by telling us what to buy, then moving those funds to "help people" and "create jobs". The rhetoric is unending and unhelpful. I really don't care if this helps kids for five minutes, because ten minutes from now they'll switch to cheap artificially sweetened drinks that are cancerous. We don't need to talk about that though, just the fact's ma'am.
When the foot seeks the place of the head, the line is crossed. Know your place. Keep your place. Be a shoe.
Why should everyone else have to pay higher taxes because some people like to drink poison or smoke fiberglass particles?
It may be their choice but they should have to pay for their choice and not make everyone else pay.
Dr. Bibbins-Domingo credits the taxation of tobacco products with being the sole cause of decreased smoking. But it seems to me that I grew up with no desire to try cigarettes after spending my childhood watching PSA after PSA pointing out that it would cause all sorts of horrible diseases. Taxation never figured into it for me...and it also seems that taxation only matters after you're hooked on cigarettes, too. I smoke cigars occasionally, but whatever added cost comes from the taxes don't matter, since it's a rare occurrence. The taxes would matter only if I were regularly spending money on them, like habitual cigarette smokers do. And I've seen how hard it is for smokers to stop, once they are hooked...it's incredibly hard. So I doubt that taxation was the main cause of the decrease in smoking.
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So taxing products that contain high fructose corn syrup is taxing something that people already pay taxes on!
I think drinking enough soda to become obese is terrible for you whether its made with HFCS or sugar.
I'd say sedentary lifestyle has just as much to do with it. When you were a farmer, you could have a gigantic breakfast, huge lunch, and crazy dinner. Thing was because you were outside moving around all day, you'd just burn those calories up and it wouldn't be an issue.
Then perhaps healthcare shouldn't be a public burden. Why should anyone pay for anyone else's life choices? The options are two: remove public healthcare or remove the choices. Our society is moving rapidly toward the latter. The logical continuation is to determine an optimal course of action for every person at every point in time, and to punish them if they attempt to deviate from their orders. We will eat what we're told to and nothing else. We will sleep and wake when we're told to and at no other time. We will exercise, work, and entertain ourselves in the exact manner which we are instructed to. To do anything else would be selfish, increasing the cost to society. Think of the children!
That's your fault for voting for policies that require you to pay for those people. There's something tyrannical about using the majority to force people to accept healthcare from you, then using the healthcare you forced them to accept as a tool to change their behavior.
In what world do most obese children "choose" to be fat? Most children are unaware of the nuances of dieting, the dangers of obesity, and the difficulty in losing weight once gained. They don't choose their parents or the culture they're born into either.
"The rest of us" shouldn't have to pay for anybody's choices. How about everybody pays for their own healthcare expenses? Gosh, what a concept!
Tell me how well that works out for you when you have to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for cancer treatment out of pocket.
We have insurance to spread the risk, not to encourage people to take stupid risks and make intentionally bad choices.
Perhaps, but what's an unhealthy lifestyle? Where do you stop? Is driving one of the shoebox sized cars an unhealthy lifestyle? Is riding a motorcycle unhealthy? How about living under power lines, is that considered an unhealthy lifestyle? Live near an airport or next to a busy road? You eat non-organic foods? You walk outside without sunscreen? You live in the city? You ride a bicycle to work? You drive an SUV? You eat meat? You eat fish? Are you getting enough caffeine? Are you using an antiperspirant? Are you using detergent?
What unhealthy lifestyle choices are you making where you should be taxed more or kicked off of healthcare to let die?
[John]
Shit better not happen!
Councilman Jeff Ritterman, a doctor who proposed the measure, says soda is a prime culprit behind high childhood obesity rates in Richmond, where nearly 20 percent of residents live below the poverty line.
Really? So poor people have to drink soda because they can't afford water? Walmart shows a 24ct case of .5 liter water for $3.48 online. A quick look around my house found a Rite Aid pharmacy add for 3 12-can packs of Pepsi for just under $11 with a loyalty card. That comes out to roughly $3.66 per 12-can pack. Looks to me like water is actually in most cases cheaper than sugary drinks like soda. How about that.
Councilman Ritterman, listen up. You want to make people healthier, change their eating habits, ok. But don't say this is about "helping the poor". Because it's not. If you charge them more for soda, guess what? They're going to keep drinking soda, and be even poorer. The only people that might actually switch to water or something healthier are the people who can actually afford the tax already. If you want to make people healthier, you can't legislate it. You have to teach them, educate them about being healthy. Let me teach you a nice little rhyme that might help you. If you are trying to ban something or tax something to change people's behavior think of this: educate, don't legislate.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Sounds great. When you die of cancer that costs more than you can afford to treat, can I have your stuff?
The reality is we each have a low probability of that happening but almost no one can afford to pay for it alone. This is why insurance exists. Much like flood or car insurance, you have to either enforce participation or just allow people who don't have the money to die in the gutter.
I would prefer to think we do not live in a society that lets our people die in the gutter.
Just to be sure we're clear -- are you saying you want to live somewhere the emergency rooms turn people away?
I'm not really sure that it's fair to characterize "ensuring that the costs of the choices have would-be externalities incorporated rather than passed on to others" as "removing the choices". Does make a better sound bite, though.
Minor variances in what you eat doesn't make a huge difference. It's when you consume a lot of one type of thing. Soda here and there is fine, chugging 8 MountainDews a day is not healthy.
To have a requirement to "NOT ACTIVELY KILL YOURSELF" is quite different than "this is what you have to eat".
Ok, then actually, we need to turn things around and tax people who try to live longer. No, seriously, the big cost in healthcare is end of life care. It is when you are old and everything just starts going wrong, particularly when you start suffering from mental problems like dementia. THAT'S what really costs. A guy who dies at 60 of a heart attack from being obese? Saved everyone a ton of money. Yes, during his life he cost more than someone who was in very good health, but by not living in to his 80s he saved a ton of money net.
This is all never mind retirement pay. It would be easy to fix SS if most people started dying before they needed to collect it. It could just pay out for disability, and for the rare retirement.
So if you want the taxes to align with the costs, then healthy living is what is going to be taxed. Those that do things that would lead to them living the longest will pay the highest taxes because they are the ones who are likely to cost the most.
If you don't like that idea because you are making the "right" choices, then maybe you need to rethink your premise. Seems to me like people want to "punish" people who they perceive to make the wrong choice, rather than set up something actually based on economics.
So some research, we know what the costs are in healthcare and it is that damn old age and end of life care that pushes it through the roof.
The parents are making them fat to catch sales and save money.
This cut to the heart of why such a tax actually makes economic (and capitalistic) sense at a state level. The cost of these sugary/fattening products is artificially low due to taxpayer money being funneled into the industry at a federal level. Since the farm lobby is too powerful to get that cut it makes sense for states to balance things out and bring such food items at least part of the way back to their real cost.
I've known at least four people who drink 8+ high calorie/high sugar/high caffine drinks per day and they are as thin as rails. Yet I work out, drink 95% water, and try my best to eat healthy and I'm the one with 'extra' pounds. So I think you and alot of other people are not looking enough at biological factors and deciding it is all in the foods consumed.
we are all invisible unless we choose otherwise
You're not paying for your own healthcare, you're also paying for others. When the hospital has to spend $20k on someone, and that person doesn't have insurance, the hospital has to eat the loss. Wait.. wait.. loss? They're a private business, they'd go under. Ahh, here we go, they jack up the prices for everyone who can afford health-care.
Guess what is causing health-care prices to go up? People who can't afford preventative measures have to come in once it's critical. On average, that costs even more. It's lose lose. Not only do your prices go up, but the poor get worse treatment.
Ignoring corruption and waste(very real issue), public healthcare would reduce the cost of healthcare by catching preventable issues before they cost more money. We need a baseline public healthcare with most everything else as elective. Then let private insurance cover the difference. I'm sure people middle-class workers would love to have insurance with better coverage, and that's where private companies come in.
The US already has a publicly funded healthcare system that can not refuse patients, it's called the ER. The reason why healthcare rates are skyrocketing is not because of additional use by policy holders, but because of skyrocketing costs at hospitals and other covered facilities that have to make up for their losses on indigent and poor that use their facilities as primary care. Also, because it's not real primary care, they do not have the benefit of preventative care and regular screening.
I work in a hospital system and we do provide for care and regular screening for the poor/indigent. Many of them CHOOSE not to utilize this.
It's certainly not like this everywhere (we are a large not-for-profit system), but saying that they do not have that option available at all is certainly not true. There are also a couple of free clinics with quality doctors that provide free check-ups and basic care in the community as well. This is in a city of about 315k people, for whatever it's worth.
Just another ignorant American.
The first statement asks that everyone should pay for their own healthcare. So if a person who has no money goes to an emergency room, they are going to be told to go away. What's so hard to understand about that?
Many would argue that the cost of care is skyrocketing, not because of caring for people who can't pay, but because nobody has to directly pay the cost of care. Your doctor sees something, and its a 1% chance of being bad. So he orders a test.. You say great, what a fabulous doctor. However, someone has to pay the $15k for that test. If YOU had to pay it out of your pocket, would you think a bit on it? thats a ton of money for a very, very small chance of something being bad. In fact, when is the last time you knew someone who asked the doctor how much something costs?
Calling healthcare 'insurance' is a bit silly.. if my car insurance covered all gas, repairs, accidents (as many at-fault incidents as I needed) payments, etc.. You can bet the cost of car insurance would skyrocket too..
What are we going to do tonight Brain?