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> These taxes are cruel, but necessary. It's a pigouvian tax that literally saves lives. And with modern technology it can only get better. For example, why no

> These taxes are cruel, but necessary. It's a pigouvian tax that literally saves lives. And with modern technology it can only get better. For example, why not create an algorithm that scores how healthy your choices at the grocery store are and introduce the appropriate tax in the end? We are also on the verge of being able to monitor everyone's every movement. Why not tax those who don't exercise enough? Imagine how much the average lifespan will increase when people finally give up on outdated notions of personal freedom and irrational choices.

btown 11y ago
It's worth noting that private insurance is already trying this type of thing, tracking driving habits. If the government doesn't do this, health insurers will.
- TelmoMenezes 11y ago
  True, the future is looking quite dystopic. I am not a pessimist though: as usual, a new generation will come which will reject all this authoritarianism (as it happened before with sexual behavior, for example).
- evanpw 11y ago
  Not in the United States. Obamacare made most of this type of thing illegal: only geography, age, and tobacco use are allowable variables, and there are caps on the size of the variation in price.
Ao7bei3s 11y ago
> finally give up on outdated notions of personal freedom and irrational choice Apparently the cigarette industries' attempts to associate smoking with personal freedom in advertisements have been successful in your case. I think the health benefits by far outweigh any perceived personal freedom costs. Smoking is damaging but addictive. Too many people want to but don't manage to stop. If higher prices help reduce smoking, I'm for higher prices.
- TelmoMenezes 11y ago
  > Apparently the cigarette industries' attempts to associate smoking with personal freedom in advertisements have been successful in your case. Not really, I used to smoke but I quit. That's a straw man, and also quite patronizing. You can hold a rational ethical position without buying into the mythology of Marlboro man. The question still stands: if you accept that health benefits can outweigh personal freedom, where do you draw the line?
  - adrianN 11y ago
    > if you accept that health benefits can outweigh personal freedom, where do you draw the line? When they stop doing so, of course. It depends on how much you value different kinds of personal freedom. I for example believe that it would be reasonable to tax unhealthy food more than healthy food and have people who are overweight pay more for their health insurance. But I don't think that tracking everyone's movement outweighs potential benefits from taxing lack of physical activity.
    - bobwaycott 11y ago
      Who, and by what metric, determines what "unhealthy food" is? We've all seen plenty of disagreement within nutrition science. Many people take positions that are somewhat more philosophical than scientific. Some foods may only be unhealthy in specific quantities, or in combination with other foods in specific quantities. Furthermore, there are medical conditions--and even treatments for medical conditions--that can cause obesity that have nothing to do with a person's diet. Should the people suffering from these situations be charged more for their health insurance? Here's a real-world example: A friend of mine's wife was, at the time they discovered she was pregnant, diagnosed with leukemia. It has been the most awful thing I've witnessed in some time. A mid-five-foot woman, who probably barely weighed 120 pounds, after months of different treatments, wound up with a host of medical complications, then further treatments. This all wound up causing her to gain what looked like probably 100+ pounds. Last year, they paid over $18K in out-of-pocket medical expenses. It seems unconscionable to me to advocate my friend and his wife should have to pay more for health insurance because she's now technically obese. They can already barely survive (she cannot work, and he spent 5 months unemployed last year). Bottom line: very few things are simply black-and-white. There are so many shades of gray. The real world is full of myriad complications and counterexamples that ought to help us realize we can't just draw simplistic lines in the sand based on silly, poorly conceived premises. Oh sure, it sounds good when the idea pops in your head, especially when it doesn't affect you--always because your conception doesn't ever include you. But it's bound, like all things, to come down with undeserved and unbalanced harshness on somebody. And that leads to having to probe whether or not these ideas are just and fair. Oftentimes, they are not.
hapless 11y ago
Diet is still, in 2016, poorly understood. Taxing all food choices in a way that successfully reduced negative externalities would be quite a challenge. For one thing, taxing your grocery cart will not powerfully alter the behavior of people not shopping for the groceries. Tobacco taxes work primarily because we prevent new smokers from taking up the habit, not by alteration of existing smokers consumption patterns. I do strongly favor substantial increases in alcohol taxes, across the board, for similar reasons to tobacco.
kamaal 11y ago
>>Why not tax those who don't exercise enough? What do you propose should be taxed? Taxes are on things you buy. By the way people who don't exercise will pay taxes on medicines and health care later. So yeah, some way of taxing that already exists.
- renata 11y ago
  As of the ACA, taxes can also be on things you don't buy, expanding that to things you don't do seems like a small step.
ljk 11y ago
> We are also on the verge of being able to monitor everyone's every movement. Why not tax those who don't exercise enough? second-hand smoke also affects people around the smokers
amag 11y ago
I'm all for higher taxation or, better yet, banning smoking altogether. The difference between smoking and eating unhealthy/not exercising enough is that smoking affects other people in a very real way through second-hand smoking. So smoking is not just about a single person's freedom of choice because it affects every one around the smoker. It affects those who have decide not to smoke but are now forced to either hold their breath waiting for the bus or breath in the smoke.
- ArkyBeagle 11y ago
  We did that with alcohol. It didn't work out. I hate to be that guy, but the effects of second-hand smoke studies happened long enough after this all got sufficiently politicized to where I'll (conveniently) take them at face value, but I'll never completely trust them. Simple bias confirmation is sufficient to explain the preponderance of the literature. The latency times for tobacco effects in general make it a doozy of a thing to study. By the time the information gets to lunkheads like me, it's hash.
  - amag 11y ago
    I'd argue that alcohol is a completely different beast. Most people start smoking to be "cool" or because their friends smoke (or both). It's a fact that very few people start to smoke after their eighteenth birthday. If we remove the access to cigarettes and make it uncool to smoke, I firmly believe very few people would start. (I'd be ok with a period of cigarette prescriptions, so all those who smoke now and want to keep doing it could in non-public spaces.) With alcohol it's different, most people start to drink to get wasted, of course some level of "coolness" is involved and to a large degree friends, but the lure of getting high is there. Alcohol seems to fill an almost universal need for intoxication (and if it's not alcohol it's some other drug). > The latency times for tobacco effects in general make it a doozy of a thing to study Sure, but given that the damaging effects of smoking has been proven, I for one would rather play it safe. I want to have my freedom to choose when to expose myself to something that may be damaging to my body and my body alone. I don't want that choice to be done for me by someone else just because they feel like lighting up while we wait for the bus or whatever.

btown 11y ago

It's worth noting that private insurance is already trying this type of thing, tracking driving habits. If the government doesn't do this, health insurers will.

TelmoMenezes 11y ago
True, the future is looking quite dystopic. I am not a pessimist though: as usual, a new generation will come which will reject all this authoritarianism (as it happened before with sexual behavior, for example).
evanpw 11y ago
Not in the United States. Obamacare made most of this type of thing illegal: only geography, age, and tobacco use are allowable variables, and there are caps on the size of the variation in price.

Ao7bei3s 11y ago

> finally give up on outdated notions of personal freedom and irrational choice Apparently the cigarette industries' attempts to associate smoking with personal freedom in advertisements have been successful in your case. I think the health benefits by far outweigh any perceived personal freedom costs. Smoking is damaging but addictive. Too many people want to but don't manage to stop. If higher prices help reduce smoking, I'm for higher prices.

TelmoMenezes 11y ago
> Apparently the cigarette industries' attempts to associate smoking with personal freedom in advertisements have been successful in your case. Not really, I used to smoke but I quit. That's a straw man, and also quite patronizing. You can hold a rational ethical position without buying into the mythology of Marlboro man. The question still stands: if you accept that health benefits can outweigh personal freedom, where do you draw the line?
- adrianN 11y ago
  > if you accept that health benefits can outweigh personal freedom, where do you draw the line? When they stop doing so, of course. It depends on how much you value different kinds of personal freedom. I for example believe that it would be reasonable to tax unhealthy food more than healthy food and have people who are overweight pay more for their health insurance. But I don't think that tracking everyone's movement outweighs potential benefits from taxing lack of physical activity.
  - bobwaycott 11y ago
    Who, and by what metric, determines what "unhealthy food" is? We've all seen plenty of disagreement within nutrition science. Many people take positions that are somewhat more philosophical than scientific. Some foods may only be unhealthy in specific quantities, or in combination with other foods in specific quantities. Furthermore, there are medical conditions--and even treatments for medical conditions--that can cause obesity that have nothing to do with a person's diet. Should the people suffering from these situations be charged more for their health insurance? Here's a real-world example: A friend of mine's wife was, at the time they discovered she was pregnant, diagnosed with leukemia. It has been the most awful thing I've witnessed in some time. A mid-five-foot woman, who probably barely weighed 120 pounds, after months of different treatments, wound up with a host of medical complications, then further treatments. This all wound up causing her to gain what looked like probably 100+ pounds. Last year, they paid over $18K in out-of-pocket medical expenses. It seems unconscionable to me to advocate my friend and his wife should have to pay more for health insurance because she's now technically obese. They can already barely survive (she cannot work, and he spent 5 months unemployed last year). Bottom line: very few things are simply black-and-white. There are so many shades of gray. The real world is full of myriad complications and counterexamples that ought to help us realize we can't just draw simplistic lines in the sand based on silly, poorly conceived premises. Oh sure, it sounds good when the idea pops in your head, especially when it doesn't affect you--always because your conception doesn't ever include you. But it's bound, like all things, to come down with undeserved and unbalanced harshness on somebody. And that leads to having to probe whether or not these ideas are just and fair. Oftentimes, they are not.

hapless 11y ago

Diet is still, in 2016, poorly understood. Taxing all food choices in a way that successfully reduced negative externalities would be quite a challenge. For one thing, taxing your grocery cart will not powerfully alter the behavior of people not shopping for the groceries. Tobacco taxes work primarily because we prevent new smokers from taking up the habit, not by alteration of existing smokers consumption patterns. I do strongly favor substantial increases in alcohol taxes, across the board, for similar reasons to tobacco.

kamaal 11y ago

>>Why not tax those who don't exercise enough? What do you propose should be taxed? Taxes are on things you buy. By the way people who don't exercise will pay taxes on medicines and health care later. So yeah, some way of taxing that already exists.

renata 11y ago
As of the ACA, taxes can also be on things you don't buy, expanding that to things you don't do seems like a small step.

ljk 11y ago

> We are also on the verge of being able to monitor everyone's every movement. Why not tax those who don't exercise enough? second-hand smoke also affects people around the smokers

amag 11y ago

I'm all for higher taxation or, better yet, banning smoking altogether. The difference between smoking and eating unhealthy/not exercising enough is that smoking affects other people in a very real way through second-hand smoking. So smoking is not just about a single person's freedom of choice because it affects every one around the smoker. It affects those who have decide not to smoke but are now forced to either hold their breath waiting for the bus or breath in the smoke.

ArkyBeagle 11y ago
We did that with alcohol. It didn't work out. I hate to be that guy, but the effects of second-hand smoke studies happened long enough after this all got sufficiently politicized to where I'll (conveniently) take them at face value, but I'll never completely trust them. Simple bias confirmation is sufficient to explain the preponderance of the literature. The latency times for tobacco effects in general make it a doozy of a thing to study. By the time the information gets to lunkheads like me, it's hash.
- amag 11y ago
  I'd argue that alcohol is a completely different beast. Most people start smoking to be "cool" or because their friends smoke (or both). It's a fact that very few people start to smoke after their eighteenth birthday. If we remove the access to cigarettes and make it uncool to smoke, I firmly believe very few people would start. (I'd be ok with a period of cigarette prescriptions, so all those who smoke now and want to keep doing it could in non-public spaces.) With alcohol it's different, most people start to drink to get wasted, of course some level of "coolness" is involved and to a large degree friends, but the lure of getting high is there. Alcohol seems to fill an almost universal need for intoxication (and if it's not alcohol it's some other drug). > The latency times for tobacco effects in general make it a doozy of a thing to study Sure, but given that the damaging effects of smoking has been proven, I for one would rather play it safe. I want to have my freedom to choose when to expose myself to something that may be damaging to my body and my body alone. I don't want that choice to be done for me by someone else just because they feel like lighting up while we wait for the bus or whatever.