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Location: Midessa, Texas Home Yangzhou, Jiangsu temporarily
1,506 posts, read 4,279,518 times
Reputation: 992
Quote:
Originally Posted by hotair2
How about a tax rebate then. Step on the scales and get a rebate.
Humm, that might work. I was originally thinking more along the lines of traditional ridicule and shunning, but I am pretty progressive so I would give the tax rebate thing a try.
It is a little. However, the issue of being overweight in America is not. If you want health care reform, the best place to start is reducing the cost to treat people. It is a fact that overweight people have a higher rate of illness. We as a society have to pay for that one way or another. Why not give people incentives or disincentives to be more healthy. Some of my suggestions were silly, but the topic is not.
I am traditionally for personal choice being left alone, if you want to maintain an unhealthy body weight, that's great, more power to you, don't bother me. But with UHC, food stamps, health insurance costs (mine costs more cause of 45 yr olds having heart attacks/diabetes/HBP), I'm am no longer not bothered, and if I am going to be burdened with cost, I should have a say.
That being said, I would support a fat tax, if this era of regulating everyones resource usage and individual climate damage comes to play, it only fits.
It is a little. However, the issue of being overweight in America is not. If you want health care reform, the best place to start is reducing the cost to treat people. It is a fact that overweight people have a higher rate of illness. We as a society have to pay for that one way or another. Why not give people incentives or disincentives to be more healthy. Some of my suggestions were silly, but the topic is not.
The topic is very silly, honestly, lets tax hispanics more because beans give you gas and that is bad for the environment. Most people know that really skinny guy who eats like a horse, where does he fit into it? What about personal responsibility, if you don't take care of yourself, your junk is going to break. Not unlike owning a home or a car, if you don't do preventative maintenance, it's going to cost you in the long run. The more we are broke down into little groups, all to be punished in some way for "the greater good" the less liberty we have, and we relenquish more control to a corrupt organization. And no, we shouldn't have to pay for one another, we should do well for others, by doing well for ourselves.
Why are humans the only species bent on saving the shallow end of the gene pool?
I don't care to punish fat people - I could stand to lose some weight myself - but I do think it would be beneficial to have a concrete reason for losing weight in this case the avoidance of tax.
I also think that things like a health club membership and membership in organizations such as weight watchers should be tax deductable.
I think being unattractive and unhealthy are pretty good reasons to avoid obesity in the first place.
But I do like the idea of healthy activities (as well as many other activies) getting a tax break.
I'm fine with a fat tax (though wouldn't it be great to be able to implement a douchebag tax as well? Ah, I can dream.....)
Still one thing about your post struck me - food stamps. Years ago I worked in a grocery store and yes, people on food stamps bought all the boxed processed foods. But there is a reason for this - its cheaper. They get more bang for their stamp so to speak. If the foodstamp program was revamped to provide more money but have the requirement that the people on it could only buy nutritous foods similiar to the WIC program, well I think that would be a good tradeoff.
Another reason many people on food stamps buy all this convenience food is that they a) don't know how to cook [this is common with teen moms that I have worked with] and/or b) have inadequate cooking facilities.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lucidus
I am against any new tax, but it would nice if we could find a way to punish fat people more.
Punish! Jeez, what is this, Guantanomo Bay?
Quote:
Originally Posted by WalterK
I am traditionally for personal choice being left alone, if you want to maintain an unhealthy body weight, that's great, more power to you, don't bother me. But with UHC, food stamps, health insurance costs (mine costs more cause of 45 yr olds having heart attacks/diabetes/HBP), I'm am no longer not bothered, and if I am going to be burdened with cost, I should have a say.
That being said, I would support a fat tax, if this era of regulating everyones resource usage and individual climate damage comes to play, it only fits.
Just what would you tax? Any nutritionist worth his/her RD will tell you that any food can be worked into a healthy diet. Portion control, etc. And lest you think that overweith is the only cause of heart attacks, diabetes, HBP, think again.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ecvMatt
Why are humans the only species bent on saving the shallow end of the gene pool?
Good Grief! Shades of Nazi Germany!
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