Death prevention tax my ass.

[Ishmael]

This article in the

LA Times


describes how some folks are making the claim that enacting a 1 penny per ounce tax on soft drinks will prevent 26,000 'premature deaths and then goes on to claim how this will save $17 billion a year while raising $13 billion in taxes.

Bullshit. Not a single penny will be saved, it's nothing more than a smoke screen to raise taxes.

Ishmael

 

[NewEnglandGirl]

Any idea whether increased taxes on cigarettes led to less smoking or lives saved? I honestly have no idea what the stats look like, but my gut says, not enough to be statistically significant, in most states. This is more a petty annoyance, like a bottle deposit, in terms of cost.

I also found it interesting that the suggested alternatives were milk and fruit juice, neither of which is all that ideal for you. They didn't consider water? Which is both healthier and free.....

 

[RightField]

Sound like democrats trying to deceive again.

 

[miles]

Any idea whether increased taxes on cigarettes led to less smoking or lives saved? I honestly have no idea what the stats look like, but my gut says, not enough to be statistically significant, in most states. This is more a petty annoyance, like a bottle deposit, in terms of cost.

Hmm...who bears the burden of the cigarette tax....high income people or lower income people?

 

[miles]

Sound like democrats trying to deceive again.

Racist!

 

[koalabear]

Someone should tell them most sodas do not use sugar any more.

 

[TexasWife25]

This study has a lot of assumptions
and a lack of actual statistics...

 

[NewEnglandGirl]

Hmm...who bears the burden of the cigarette tax....high income people or lower income people?

This may be a first - we are in agreement on this point. It wasn't where I was going with my post, but you are absolutely correct, because typically higher income people don't smoke. Of course, multiple conclusions can be drawn from that factoid as well.

Someone should tell them most sodas do not use sugar any more.

Also true - lower quality sodas use high fructose corn syrup, which is much sweeter and far more unhealthy than sugar. Therefore, even worse for health.

As best as I recall, the taxes collected for cigarettes did not pay for health care as it was originally supposed to do. I don't imagine that this tax would either.

 

[Ishmael]

Any idea whether increased taxes on cigarettes led to less smoking or lives saved? I honestly have no idea what the stats look like, but my gut says, not enough to be statistically significant, in most states. This is more a petty annoyance, like a bottle deposit, in terms of cost.

I also found it interesting that the suggested alternatives were milk and fruit juice, neither of which is all that ideal for you. They didn't consider water? Which is both healthier and free.....

Sound like democrats trying to deceive again.

Of course it's deception, no matter which political regime is pushing the notion.

The entire concept of 'lives saved' is ridiculous in the extreme. Everyone is going to die eventually, there is no question of 'if', only the when and how are subject to conjecture. Further, 80% of all of your lifetime health care costs will be incurred in the last 6 months of your life. The fact that not engaging in some particular activity may, arguable, put your demise off for some period of time does not change the aforementioned facts.

One could, with equal validity, argue that putting off someones death will actually end up costing more in the long run. If, for example, this soda tax works as the snake oil purveyors propose it will and the individuals demise is put off for, oh say, 10 years. Given our built in inflation (and disregarding that heath care costs are out stripping inflation) it is quite easy to see that $17 billion being deferred to where it would be $24 billion. It's like a balloon payment with compounded interest. (And very likely the reason that they only bother to throw out the numbers for one year.)

There is, as NEG pointed out, this assumption that the soda will be replaced with milk and fruit juice. Really? Not very likely at all. And even if true, see the paragraph above.

This is nothing more than the modern equivalent of the old west traveling medicine show with the government standing on the tail gate of the wagon trying their damnedest to separate the suckers from their money.

Ishmael

 

[RightField]

Of course it's deception, no matter which political regime is pushing the notion.

The entire concept of 'lives saved' is ridiculous in the extreme. Everyone is going to die eventually, there is no question of 'if', only the when and how are subject to conjecture. Further, 80% of all of your lifetime health care costs will be incurred in the last 6 months of your life. The fact that not engaging in some particular activity may, arguable, put your demise off for some period of time does not change the aforementioned facts.

One could, with equal validity, argue that putting off someones death will actually end up costing more in the long run. If, for example, this soda tax works as the snake oil purveyors propose it will and the individuals demise is put off for, oh say, 10 years. Given our built in inflation (and disregarding that heath care costs are out stripping inflation) it is quite easy to see that $17 billion being deferred to where it would be $24 billion. It's like a balloon payment with compounded interest. (And very likely the reason that they only bother to throw out the numbers for one year.)

There is, as NEG pointed out, this assumption that the soda will be replaced with milk and fruit juice. Really? Not very likely at all. And even if true, see the paragraph above.

This is nothing more than the modern equivalent of the old west traveling medicine show with the government standing on the tail gate of the wagon trying their damnedest to separate the suckers from their money.

Ishmael

They seem to be trying to regulate quite a bit of our lives and freedom, aren't they?

 

[koalabear]

They seem to be trying to regulate quite a bit of our lives and freedom, aren't they?

Well they do know what is best for you.

 

[unregistered]

 

[NewEnglandGirl]

It could be argued (however unconvincingly) that these measures are either "for the common good" or to keep escalating health insurance premiums down. However, both arguments are so deeply flawed as to be laughable.

 

[TexasWife25]

They seem to be trying to regulate quite a bit of our lives and freedom, aren't they?

Lets just be honest here
when was the last time the government shrank?
Or simply didn't grow at all?

Neither the republican nor democratic parties
have gone out of their way to keep government small
and out of our personal lives.

The difference is simply in what they want to intrude in
The democrats what to regulate what you eat
the republicans, who you fuck.

 

[Ishmael]

It could be argued (however unconvincingly) that these measures are either "for the common good" or to keep escalating health insurance premiums down. However, both arguments are so deeply flawed as to be laughable.

All of those arguments fall on their ass when confronted with the facts. Unfortunately there are far too many in this nation that choose to be willfully, for various and sundry reasons of their own, ignorant.

I can argue, and have, with significantly more powerful logic, that prolonging life is NOT in the interest of the 'common good.'

Ishmael

 

[TexasWife25]

All of those arguments fall on their ass when confronted with the facts. Unfortunately there are far too many in this nation that choose to be willfully, for various and sundry reasons of their own, ignorant.

I can argue, and have, with significantly more powerful logic, that prolonging life is NOT in the interest of the 'common good.'

Ishmael

You could also make the argument
that these taxes target small
unpopular demographics which make
them easier to pass

When they started hiking taxes on cigarettes
anyone who was a non-smoker, came out strong
saying smokers deserved it for being so unhealthy

Now you have a purposed pop tax
and most would just shrug it off and say
serves you right for being so unhealthy
as to drink pop...

 

[RightField]

Lets just be honest here
when was the last time the government shrank?
Or simply didn't grow at all?

Neither the republican nor democratic parties
have gone out of their way to keep government small
and out of our personal lives.

The difference is simply in what they want to intrude in
The democrats what to regulate what you eat
the republicans, who you fuck.

I don't think the republicans are trying to regulate who you fuck, they're just not in favor of changing the 5,000 year old definition of "marriage".

 

[Ishmael]

You could also make the argument
that these taxes target small
unpopular demographics which make
them easier to pass

When they started hiking taxes on cigarettes
anyone who was a non-smoker, came out strong
saying smokers deserved it for being so unhealthy

Now you have a purposed pop tax
and most would just shrug it off and say
serves you right for being so unhealthy
as to drink pop...

Divide et impera.

Ishmael

 

[RightField]

You could also make the argument
that these taxes target small
unpopular demographics which make
them easier to pass

When they started hiking taxes on cigarettes
anyone who was a non-smoker, came out strong
saying smokers deserved it for being so unhealthy

Now you have a purposed pop tax
and most would just shrug it off and say
serves you right for being so unhealthy
as to drink pop...

I read it fast and thought you said "Now you have a purposed poop tax"...and thought, wow, now they're really carrying this personal/state intrusion thing a bit far.

 

[TexasWife25]

I don't think the republicans are trying to regulate who you fuck, they're just not in favor of changing the 5,000 year old definition of "marriage".

LOL
I love this argument

5000 years ago
marriage was a contract between 2 men
the groom and the father of the bride

I suppose you could even argue it was between the groom
and all of the fathers of the brides

As it was mostly custom to
have more then 1 wife.

 

[ChinaBandit]

All of those arguments fall on their ass when confronted with the facts. Unfortunately there are far too many in this nation that choose to be willfully, for various and sundry reasons of their own, ignorant.

I can argue, and have, with significantly more powerful logic, that prolonging life is NOT in the interest of the 'common good.'

Ishmael

Exactly.

In fact, we need to find a way to speed up the carrying out of executions.

It annoys the hell out of me that it actually costs as much to keep someone on death row for 20 years as it does another person fulfilling a 30 plus year life sentence. The appeal process alone in capital cases rings up the tax dollars.

I'm also a frim believer it is not the responsibility of government to save people from themselves.

 

[JBCorbell]

$13 billion a year channeled to health care and people paying for their bad habits. Sounds like a winner to me.

 

[eyer]

Mass prostate cancer screenings don't reduce death

(NewDesignWorld Press Center) - There’s new evidence that annual prostate cancer screening does not reduce deaths from the disease, even among men in their 50s and 60s and those with underlying health conditions, according to new research led by Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

A longer follow-up of more than 76,000 men in a major U.S. study shows that six years of aggressive, annual screening for prostate cancer led to more diagnoses of tumors but not to fewer deaths from the disease.

The updated results of the Prostate, Lung, Cancer, Colorectal and Ovarian (PLCO) Cancer Screening Trial will be published online Jan. 6 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

“The data confirm that for most men, it is not necessary to be screened annually for prostate cancer,” says the study's lead author and principal investigator Gerald Andriole, MD, chief urologic surgeon at the Siteman Cancer Center at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and Washington University School of Medicine. “A large majority of the cancers we found are slow-growing tumors that are unlikely to be deadly.”

http://www.newdesignworld.com/press/story/471220

So much hype...

...so little reality.

 

[Ishmael]

$13 billion a year channeled to health care and people paying for their bad habits. Sounds like a winner to me.

You aren't very up to speed on either economics or government spending practices.

Ishmael

 

[ChinaBandit]

Catch-22

The Chinese have a huge health problem because it has the largest smoking population, by far, in the world. There is something like 2 million cigs burning per second. Anyway, tobacco is also taxed and is a huge revenue generator.

Health costs versus tax revenue = zero sum game

Smoke 'em if you got 'em.