Fat Tax

[GrilledSteezeSandwich]

If it was up to me, I would set up official weight scales that would be used every year for the weigh in. People get taxed based on the bmi numbers. Think of the new job opportunities that would be created on this big government initiatives. Health clubs enrollment would skyrocket, personal trainers would be in high demand, nutritionist can set their own pay.....

problem is we will live longer and that will cripple this pyramid scheme we have with social security and medicare. Oh well, can't have everything.

If everybody is fit and in shape..then the death rate will go down and I'll lose business.

 

[Glenn]

Make health insurance higher for people who aren't healthy. Hell, if you're a bad driver, you pay more for car insurance.....

 

[Warp Daddy]

Make health insurance higher for people who aren't healthy. Hell, if you're a bad driver,

Excellent theoretical concept Glenn.. except in practice except in practice those WITHOUT insurance or with medicaid USE the ER. l and Hospitals CANNOT refuse treatment by statute

So hospitals Get NO reimbursement for service and take a loss-- and insurtance rates continue to go up by 15% a yr or MORE-- a systemic change is needed

SIN tax is ONE way

 

[Warp Daddy]

Charity care has TRIPLED in the last 3 months at our hospital costs us .75 mill on our bottom line in a business with a less than 1% margin AND with unlimited demand for service -- NOT a happy scenario

 

[GrilledSteezeSandwich]

This thread is getting political..

 

[Warp Daddy]

Not political steeze this scenario is going on all over the country and will implode soon as demographic wave sets in

 

[drjeff]

Not political steeze this scenario is going on all over the country and will implode soon as demographic wave sets in

Bingo!

Warp, I'd bet that a significant portion of the hospitals operating cost (and revenvue generation source for that matter) can be attributed directly to weight related issues.

No pun intended, but this is a HUGE issue that needs to be dealt with

 

[Warp Daddy]

Bingo!

Warp, I'd bet that a significant portion of the hospitals operating cost (and revenvue generation source for that matter) can be attributed directly to weight related issues.

No pun intended, but this is a HUGE issue that needs to be dealt with

Right on target Doc -- the NUMBER of CO-Morbidities in most patients these days is simply STAGGERING and is exacerbating cost .

Multiple generations of neglect or failure to manage one's own health within families, has resulted in a SEA of RED INK due to under employment and thus under insured lives and exponentially higher costs to treat them .

And what is SCARY is if un attended there will BE FEWER community based hospitals AND Providers -- this is a POWDER keg issue waiting to go off

 

[severine]

If it was up to me, I would set up official weight scales that would be used every year for the weigh in. People get taxed based on the bmi numbers.

They do something like that in Japan...

http://surgery.about.com/b/2008/06/...-measuring-movement-to-halt-obesity-trend.htm

Under Japanese law, men are expected to have a waist measurement of 33.5 inches, women, 35.4 inches or less. Corporations and the government are expected to do their share and will suffer financial penalties if they are unable to decrease their obese populations by 10% in the next four years, and by 25% in the next seven years. Large companies stand to lose millions of dollars in fines if their employees don't slim down.

 

[deadheadskier]

The Japanese system clearly shows that there is no exact science in the matter. In my adult life, I've weighed on average between 180 and 205, typically mid 190's. I've worn the same size 34" waist pants throughout that difference. Some people put on weight in different places than just the waist. There are plenty of women you see walking the streets with a big ole padunkadunk butt that are relatively thin in their waist.

 

[dmc]

There are plenty of women you see walking the streets with a big ole padunkadunk butt that are relatively thin in their waist.

Icebergs...

 

[Geoff]

The Japanese system clearly shows that there is no exact science in the matter. In my adult life, I've weighed on average between 180 and 205, typically mid 190's. I've worn the same size 34" waist pants throughout that difference. Some people put on weight in different places than just the waist. There are plenty of women you see walking the streets with a big ole padunkadunk butt that are relatively thin in their waist.

You are making the classic mistake here...

WAIST is measured at your belly button. Unless your name is Steve Urkel, that is not where you wear your pants. Your true waist measurement absolutely had to have fluctuated greatly if your weight varied 25 pounds. The health risk is tied to abdominal fat. Anybody who measures more than 37" is at fairly high risk of eventually developing diabetes and heart issues. 40" is a flashing red light that you are risking serious short-term issues.

The Japenese measure abdominal fat and require men who measure more than 33 1/2" at their waist to undergo counselling.

I think that the proper social policy should be to reward "good" behavior and penalize "bad" behavior. "Good" behavior is a waist measurment below 37" and daily exercise. At a minimum, government-supplied food like school cafeteria lunches should be healthy... 25+ grams of protien, low fat, complex carbs. Schools should require daily exercise. It could be something simple like a mile jog around the school grounds. No excuses. That's what they used to make me do when I was a kid in elementary school in the 1960's. We didn't have a gym. We didn't have a cafeteria. We also didn't have a bunch of obese kids or kids loaded up on Ritalin since everybody blew some steam off in a structured way and kids weren't wired on sugar and junk carbs.

I also think that corporate-subsidized healthcare should have penalties if you are not living a healthy life. At a minimum, smoking, obesity, and poor exercise should all cause the employee contribution to go up dramatically. This is accepted as a matter of course with automobile insurance. It's insane that everybody pays the same for health insurance.

Social policy for the poor is more difficult. I think it's probably better to reward "good" behavior than penalize "bad" behavior. Food stamps should buy more if they're used for healthy foods. They should buy less if they're used for things loaded with fats or junk carbs. You'd really like to have a way to reward people for getting exercise even if it's just walking. You'd really like to have a way to reward people for dropping abdominal fat since it's so highly correlated with high healthcare costs.

I think a direct tax on junk carbs is probably pretty good social policy. The problem is that it's tough to draw the line properly. Soda is pretty obvious. Potato chips and cookies are pretty obvious. What about white bread which is just about as bad?

 

[jack97]

Not political steeze this scenario is going on all over the country and will implode soon as demographic wave sets in

And this will force the nation into a nationalize health care system if we don't have one already.

Fat people will cost me my retirement!

 

[severine]

I think a direct tax on junk carbs is probably pretty good social policy. The problem is that it's tough to draw the line properly. Soda is pretty obvious. Potato chips and cookies are pretty obvious. What about white bread which is just about as bad?

You get on shaky ground with that. Depending on which food philosophy you believe, different foods are considered "healthy" and are therefore desirable. According to Weston A. Price/Real Milk/Nourishing Traditions people, traditional foods and fats are healthy. So butter, whole RAW milk, grass fed beef with fat, etc. (with sugars/many carbs being undesirable). If you go with the low-fat craze, then any fats are bad and therefore unhealthy. If you're vegetarian, all meat is bad. If you're vegan, anything that comes from an animal is bad... See where this is going? Who determines the guidelines? Some are clearcut, easy decisions to make.. but others are a slippery slope.

As for the foodstamps thing, the other complaint I have about those programs is that WIC is only good for what equates to as junk food: juice, processed cheese, certain cereals, peanut butter that has hydrogenated oils... If you're going to help people out who can't afford good, healthy food, why not encourage them to actually eat good, healthy food instead of subsidizing crap? It's built into the system...

 

[Warp Daddy]

you MAY be right on the first part of it


However the scary part is --------------even that doesn't guarantee THAT DOCTORS will be available as more and more of them are getting FED up with LOOOOOOOOOOOONG hrs, low reimbursements ( below marginal cost) controlled by pointed -headed bureaucrats and stupid ass pols and coupled with watching greedy HMO executives take home 7 figure BONUSES .

I just hope there IS a HEALTH care system in the future that provides Quality care , reasonable access and a fair price --------------but I'm not very hopeful -- it may well be a TWO Tier system

 

[deadheadskier]

I also think that corporate-subsidized healthcare should have penalties if you are not living a healthy life. At a minimum, smoking, obesity, and poor exercise should all cause the employee contribution to go up dramatically. This is accepted as a matter of course with automobile insurance. It's insane that everybody pays the same for health insurance.

....I still say it's a slippery slope. I don't have the best habbits out there (smoker, sometimes drink too much, could lose 15 pounds) BUT I do exercise pretty regularly and I'm far less of a tax on the health system than anyone I know. Obviously down the road, that could change if I don't make some changes, particularly with smoking, but again, you can't define things as simply as you can with car insurance.

I'm 33 and outside of 2 routine check ups, I've been to the doctor's exactly three times since graduating high school. Once was for a work related injury, once a kidney infection when I didn't have insurance and paid for it out of pocket and once for persistent migraines two years ago, that quickly abated after some minor drug therapy. So technically only one time have I cost my insurers money in 15 years. In that same time I can recall exactly once getting the flu and I've never once called off a day of work.

Now, during that very same time, I've had plenty of girlfriends who didn't drink, didn't smoke etc, and they were at the doctors every other month for some issue or another.

I just don't think things are that cut and dry. Some people naturally have better immune systems than others irregardless of habits.

 

[Beetlenut]

Why not start at the source. The food manufacturers. Govern what junk they produce, and penalize the bad stuff and reward the healthy stuff. I know it's not that simple, but these companies could be offered incentives to induce them to do produce healthy food. Kind of like the spot the car manufactureres are in now with fuel efficency problems. Since schools receive Federal funding, there already is a way to ensure that school lunches become more healthy. Take all the soda and snack machines out of the schools and replace them with healthier alternatives. Some schools have already adopted these policies on their own.

 

[jack97]

official weigh-ins once a year.....

I would throw in a fitness test, you fail you pay more. Maybe make it so hard that some will pass out but then you have to force everyone to wear a helmet

 

[mondeo]

People get taxed based on the bmi numbers.

Per BMI, I'd be overweight at 175. It's been a while since I've been at that weight, but there's no way I'm overweight at 175 - it's probably close to my ideal weight (maybe 170.) BMI has some pretty serious drawbacks that are fairly widely recognized in that it assumes a body composition.

It's also a fairly slippery slope. Do you tax people for other activities that put them at increased risk? I'm more likely to put strain on the health care system as a skier than someone who doesn't go flying down a steep, icy hill with a couple of planks of wood attached to their feet. What about taxing people with genetic predispositions for costly diseases for having children? Where does it end?

And it isn't a fat tax. It's a calorie tax. While they're the exception, how is this justified for the people that like to have a pop after they get back from their 5 mile daily run?

 

[Warp Daddy]

....I still say it's a slippery slope. I don't have the best habbits out there (smoker, sometimes drink too much, could lose 15 pounds) BUT I do exercise pretty regularly and I'm far less of a tax on the health system than anyone I know. Obviously down the road, that could change if I don't make some changes, particularly with smoking, but again, you can't define things as simply as you can with car insurance.

I'm 33 and outside of 2 routine check ups, I've been to the doctor's exactly three times since graduating high school. Once was for a work related injury, once a kidney infection when I didn't have insurance and paid for it out of pocket and once for persistent migraines two years ago, that quickly abated after some minor drug therapy. So technically only one time have I cost my insurers money in 15 years. In that same time I can recall exactly once getting the flu and I've never once called off a day of work.

Now, during that very same time, I've had plenty of girlfriends who didn't drink, didn't smoke etc, and they were at the doctors every other month for some issue or another.

I just don't think things are that cut and dry. Some people naturally have better immune systems than others irregardless of habits.

AT 33 this is valid however as we age several years of bad habits can suddenly materialize in a series of co-morbidities that ensue resulting in chronic illness requiring regular visits to your physicians and specialists , regualr lab tests and and sometimes costly intervention. Not saying it happens to all BUT MOST see this scenario play out to some degree as they enter their 4th , 5th , 6th or 7 th decade .

The singular impact with covered lives is one thing but with the uninsured or under insured it is afiancial and emotional drain not only on the indivdual but often on the healthcare system . As i mentioned before The vast majority of hospital are LOSING money bcause----------------- they must treat the ill and charity is ON THE RISE and without $$ relief teh bottom mat well fall out of the safety net -- JUST SAYIN