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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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 Posted: Tue Jun 30, 2009 3:31 pm Post subject: |
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| mises wrote: |
| Fox wrote: |
| mises wrote: |
| It is quite unfair. The careful and responsible are required to pay for the repetition of severely bad decisions by the idiots. To fix this, remove income taxes and tax things that make people fat/sick. Let fatty pay 10$ for his Big Mac and pay for his own bypass. |
So you suggest forcing individuals who eat things like fast food or drink things like sugary soda in moderation and with responsibility to pay more because of the actions of people who over-indulge. |
Yes. IF there is socialized medical insurance. |
I don't think incentives like that are necessarily bad ideas, but at the same time it seems like targeting the fast food industry in this way would be much more likely to crush it than to have a result similar to, say, the smoking tax has in America (where people keep smoking anyway). Fast food's appeal is at least in part it's cheapness; if you remove that, I'm not sure how long the industry would really last. Maybe that's not a bad thing. |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Tue Jun 30, 2009 4:02 pm Post subject: |
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| Fox wrote: |
| mises wrote: |
| Fox wrote: |
| mises wrote: |
| It is quite unfair. The careful and responsible are required to pay for the repetition of severely bad decisions by the idiots. To fix this, remove income taxes and tax things that make people fat/sick. Let fatty pay 10$ for his Big Mac and pay for his own bypass. |
So you suggest forcing individuals who eat things like fast food or drink things like sugary soda in moderation and with responsibility to pay more because of the actions of people who over-indulge. |
Yes. IF there is socialized medical insurance. |
I don't think incentives like that are necessarily bad ideas, but at the same time it seems like targeting the fast food industry in this way would be much more likely to crush it than to have a result similar to, say, the smoking tax has in America (where people keep smoking anyway). Fast food's appeal is at least in part it's cheapness; if you remove that, I'm not sure how long the industry would really last. Maybe that's not a bad thing. |
Smoking rates have declined dramatically in the West. Anyways, fast food isn't really cheap. A 'set' is at least $5.50 now. For dinner tonight I ate a half of a 1$ bag of frozen veggies, 1/8th a bag of egg noodles that was 6$ and 1 chicken breast that was 12/6$. Total meal = <$2 (incl tax) plus electricity, a small bit of sauce and tap water. I'm full. That's a great deal cheaper than fast food. People eat fast food because 1) they're lazy or 2) they're in a rush. Either way, I don't want to pay for the subsequent bypass.
Now, for catastrophic insurance, fine. If someone gets in a head on collision and needs half a million dollars of care, that's fine. But for those bad habits that directly raise the cost of insurance for all, I firmly assert the habits must become a source of revenue for the medical system. |
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Rusty Shackleford
Joined: 08 May 2008
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| Posted: Tue Jun 30, 2009 4:49 pm Post subject: |
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| Fox wrote: |
| mises wrote: |
| Fox wrote: |
| mises wrote: |
| It is quite unfair. The careful and responsible are required to pay for the repetition of severely bad decisions by the idiots. To fix this, remove income taxes and tax things that make people fat/sick. Let fatty pay 10$ for his Big Mac and pay for his own bypass. |
So you suggest forcing individuals who eat things like fast food or drink things like sugary soda in moderation and with responsibility to pay more because of the actions of people who over-indulge. |
Yes. IF there is socialized medical insurance. |
I don't think incentives like that are necessarily bad ideas, but at the same time it seems like targeting the fast food industry in this way would be much more likely to crush it than to have a result similar to, say, the smoking tax has in America (where people keep smoking anyway). Fast food's appeal is at least in part it's cheapness; if you remove that, I'm not sure how long the industry would really last. Maybe that's not a bad thing. |
So, you have mixed feelings about taxing the negative effects from the fast food industry, but you are for regulation and compliance costs, that are of dubious value, in the rest of the food industry?  |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Tue Jun 30, 2009 5:05 pm Post subject: |
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| Rusty Shackleford wrote: |
| Fox wrote: |
| mises wrote: |
| Fox wrote: |
| mises wrote: |
| It is quite unfair. The careful and responsible are required to pay for the repetition of severely bad decisions by the idiots. To fix this, remove income taxes and tax things that make people fat/sick. Let fatty pay 10$ for his Big Mac and pay for his own bypass. |
So you suggest forcing individuals who eat things like fast food or drink things like sugary soda in moderation and with responsibility to pay more because of the actions of people who over-indulge. |
Yes. IF there is socialized medical insurance. |
I don't think incentives like that are necessarily bad ideas, but at the same time it seems like targeting the fast food industry in this way would be much more likely to crush it than to have a result similar to, say, the smoking tax has in America (where people keep smoking anyway). Fast food's appeal is at least in part it's cheapness; if you remove that, I'm not sure how long the industry would really last. Maybe that's not a bad thing. |
So, you have mixed feelings about taxing the negative effects from the fast food industry, but you are for regulation and compliance costs, that are of dubious value, in the rest of the food industry? |
I clearly don't feel regulation of the food industry is of dubious value. If you care to present some solid scientific data proving regulation of the food industry has benefits which are dubious at best, I am very interested in reviewing it. If you don't, well... |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Tue Jun 30, 2009 5:12 pm Post subject: |
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| mises wrote: |
| Smoking rates have declined dramatically in the West. |
That's true, but despite labouring under extraordinary tax rates for a consumable good, cigarettes still sell quite well. My point was rather that I'm not sure fast food would fare the same way.
| mises wrote: |
| Anyways, fast food isn't really cheap. A 'set' is at least $5.50 now. For dinner tonight I ate a half of a 1$ bag of frozen veggies, 1/8th a bag of egg noodles that was 6$ and 1 chicken breast that was 12/6$. Total meal = <$2 (incl tax) plus electricity, a small bit of sauce and tap water. I'm full. That's a great deal cheaper than fast food. |
I meant that fast food was cheap compared to other food prepared for you by others, not that it was cheap compared to food one prepare's for one's self at home. Back when I lived in America, I would at times stop at Culver's for lunch. A filling meal of a jumbo hamburger and a cup of water cost me like $3.00. I would be hard pressed to have found a non-fast food restaurant I could have stopped in at on my lunch break and gotten a similar deal. If instead it were to cost, say, $10 dollars due to taxation (the price you suggested), I definitely would have gone elsewhere, as would many other people.
As I said, though, maybe that's not a bad thing. The fast food industry doesn't necessarily have the right to exist as prominently as it currently does, particularly in a society that practices socialized medicine, wherein everyone's health is to an extent everyone's concern. |
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Rusty Shackleford
Joined: 08 May 2008
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| Posted: Tue Jun 30, 2009 5:19 pm Post subject: |
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I wrote
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So, you have mixed feelings about taxing the negative effects from the fast food industry, but you are for regulation and compliance costs, that are of dubious value, in the rest of the food industry? Confused
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Fox replied
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| I clearly don't feel regulation of the food industry is of dubious value. If you care to present some solid scientific data proving regulation of the food industry has benefits which are dubious at best, I am very interested in reviewing it. If you don't, well... |
Fair enough. Remove the dubious value part, and the question still stands. |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Tue Jun 30, 2009 5:57 pm Post subject: |
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| In response to your now substantially less leading question, no, I don't particularly have mixed feelings. I made an intellectual point to inquire into mises' views on the matter, not a conviction-driven point in actual defense of the fast food industry. That's why I qualified it by saying -- both times -- that it's not necessarily a bad idea. |
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Pluto
Joined: 19 Dec 2006
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| Posted: Sat Jul 25, 2009 6:58 pm Post subject: |
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Some terminally ill patients in Oregon who turned to their state for health care were denied treatment and offered doctor-assisted suicide instead, a proposal some experts have called a �chilling� corruption of medical ethics.
Since the spread of his prostate cancer, 53-year-old Randy Stroup of Dexter, Ore., has been in a fight for his life. Uninsured and unable to pay for expensive chemotherapy, he applied to Oregon�s state-run health plan for help.
Lane Individual Practice Association (LIPA), which administers the Oregon Health Plan in Lane County, responded to Stroup�s request with a letter saying the state would not cover Stroup�s pricey treatment, but would pay for the cost of physician-assisted suicide.
�It dropped my chin to the floor,� Stroup told FOX News. �[How could they] not pay for medication that would help my life, and yet offer to pay to end my life?�
The letter, which has been sent to other terminal patients throughout Oregon, follows guidelines established by the state legislature.
Oregon doesn�t cover life-prolonging treatment unless there is better than a 5 percent chance it will help the patients live for five more years � but it covers doctor-assisted suicide, defining it as a means of providing comfort, no different from hospice care or pain medication.
�It�s chilling when you think about it,� said Dr. William Toffler, a professor of family medicine at Oregon Health & Science University. �It absolutely conveys to the patient that continued living isn�t worthwhile.� |
Disgusting! Just disgusting! Government bureaucrats telling you your life isn't worth it, so go die! Welcome to Obamacare everyone!
Fox News via Cato. |
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Rusty Shackleford
Joined: 08 May 2008
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Sat Jul 25, 2009 11:15 pm Post subject: |
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| Pluto wrote: |
| Quote: |
Some terminally ill patients in Oregon who turned to their state for health care were denied treatment and offered doctor-assisted suicide instead, a proposal some experts have called a �chilling� corruption of medical ethics.
Since the spread of his prostate cancer, 53-year-old Randy Stroup of Dexter, Ore., has been in a fight for his life. Uninsured and unable to pay for expensive chemotherapy, he applied to Oregon�s state-run health plan for help.
Lane Individual Practice Association (LIPA), which administers the Oregon Health Plan in Lane County, responded to Stroup�s request with a letter saying the state would not cover Stroup�s pricey treatment, but would pay for the cost of physician-assisted suicide.
�It dropped my chin to the floor,� Stroup told FOX News. �[How could they] not pay for medication that would help my life, and yet offer to pay to end my life?�
The letter, which has been sent to other terminal patients throughout Oregon, follows guidelines established by the state legislature.
Oregon doesn�t cover life-prolonging treatment unless there is better than a 5 percent chance it will help the patients live for five more years � but it covers doctor-assisted suicide, defining it as a means of providing comfort, no different from hospice care or pain medication.
�It�s chilling when you think about it,� said Dr. William Toffler, a professor of family medicine at Oregon Health & Science University. �It absolutely conveys to the patient that continued living isn�t worthwhile.� |
Disgusting! Just disgusting! Government bureaucrats telling you your life isn't worth it, so go die! Welcome to Obamacare everyone!
Fox News via Cato. |
No, that's about right. If gov't-run healthcare is to function, it must pick and choose. It's not that chilling when you think about it: if you want the treatment that has a less than 5% chance of getting you five more years of life, you can pay for it yourself. |
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Pluto
Joined: 19 Dec 2006
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| Posted: Sun Jul 26, 2009 1:49 pm Post subject: |
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| That is the problem. It, the government -- other people, must pick and choose. I believe that individuals can pick and choose what they want for themselves. |
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TheUrbanMyth
Joined: 28 Jan 2003
Location: Retired
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| Posted: Sun Jul 26, 2009 6:08 pm Post subject: |
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| Pluto wrote: |
| That is the problem. It, the government -- other people, must pick and choose. I believe that individuals can pick and choose what they want for themselves. |
And they can...if they can afford it. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Mon Jul 27, 2009 9:48 pm Post subject: |
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| Pluto wrote: |
| That is the problem. It, the government -- other people, must pick and choose. I believe that individuals can pick and choose what they want for themselves. |
The gov't already does so. It's called Medicare. It's called Medicaid.
We already have socialized health care. Why? Its the least worst option. Yes, I believe health care is a realm of market failure. Just look at who does the picking and choosing now: the insurance industry. And they're less accountable than the gov't right now.
And I'm no fan of the gov't, Pluto: for me its a four-letter word. |
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