Should We Tax Sodas and Junk Food to Pay for Health Care?

[Guest guest]

Should We Tax Sodas and Junk Food to Pay for Health Care?

_http://www.naturalnews.com/026762_health_soda_food.html_

(http://www.naturalnews.com/026762_health_soda_food.html)

 

 

(NaturalNews)

Mr. Johnson weighed nearly a ton.

And drank pop *til his health came undone.

His kidneys turned blue. But he said,

**I've got two.** **So I*ll drink *til I only lose one.**

 

 

The debate over health care reform has run smack into a brick wall of

economic reality. There's just not enough money to pay for all the disease in

America, it seems, and now lawmakers are desperately searching for new

sources that might bridge the financial gaps. Their latest scheme involves

taxing sodas with a three-cent tax to raise an extra $24 billion over the next

four years.

 

 

At first, taxing soda might seem like a good idea. Sodas, after all,

promote diabetes, obesity, bone loss and many other costly health conditions.

It

only stands to reason that people who drink soda should pay a little more

towards a national health care plan.

 

 

But there are problems with this idea of a soda tax. For starters, it*s a

highly regressive tax that ultimately gets paid mostly by low-income,

low-education people (the kind of people who drink a lot of soda). It*s a tax,

in other words, on those who can least afford it.

 

 

Another problem with such a tax is that if the U.S. government is going to

use taxes to modify consumer behavior, it would seem prudent to first end

the government subsidies on sugar that have existed since World War II. Why

are we still using taxpayer dollars to lower the price of sugar when

refined white sugar contributes so much to our nation's health problems?

 

 

Then there*s the question of where the money will go. Even if you slap a

five-cent tax on every can of soda, does that money actually end up going

towards improved health care, or is it just lost in the morass of

bureaucratic incompetude that wanders the halls of Washington these days?

 

 

Case in point: The government settlement with Big Tobacco. All that

tobacco money that was supposed to go to **improving health care** across

America

has actually ended up in the general budgets of most states, where it gets

wasted on a thousand different things that have nothing to do with health

care. A soda tax would likely end up being lost in the system in much the

same way.

 

 

A better solution for influencing consumer behavior Slapping new **sin

taxes** on consumer products as a way to shape consumer behavior while raising

money is a seductively attractive idea if you*re a bureaucrat with an

itchy trigger finger. It seems (at first, at least) economically and morally

sound: Make the people who cause the problem pay more for fixing it. It all

seems so simple: Let cigarette taxes pay for health care. Let soda taxes help

fight obesity. Let alcohol taxes pay for alcohol addiction recovery

centers. But in the real world, it never quite works that way: Money gets

stolen

away for other uses, rarely going to the intended beneficiary. Meanwhile,

the taxes end up hurting those consumers who can least afford it.

 

 

A far better option is educating consumers about the harm these products

cause. Put large, unambiguous warnings on cigarettes like, **SMOKING CAUSES

CANCER** along with a horrifying picture of a diseased lung. On soda cans,

you could require warnings like, **DRINKING SODA CAUSES KIDNEY STONES**

along with a picture of a short, sweaty man holding his junk and screaming in

pain.

 

 

You get the idea. Why waste all that time and effort collecting and

distributing a five-cent soda tax when you can just use pictures and warning

labels to influence consumer behavior?

 

 

Of course, using honest labels on harmful products doesn*t raise money for

bureaucrats to ferret away in their favorite pork projects, but it does

accomplish something much more important: It reduces long-term health care

costs by dissuading people from consuming harmful products.

 

 

Sure, it doesn*t stop every ignorant teen from slamming colas while he

becomes obese and diabetic, but it does have a positive influence on many. The

sad truth is that most people who drink soda have no idea the phosphoric

acid causes bone mineral loss and kidney stones. They have no clue that

high-fructose corn syrup promotes diabetes and obesity. They just don*t know

about the harmful effects of drinking highly acidic liquid sugar beverages,

and that*s part of the reason why they keep drinking them.

 

 

In my opinion, large health warnings should be required on all sodas and

junk food products. And they should be blunt: Soda causes diabetes. Donuts

cause obesity and heart disease. Hot dogs cause cancer. The list goes on...

 

 

Such a proposal would horrify the corporate giants in the food and

beverage industries, of course. Their sales depend on consumers staying

ignorant

about the ravaging health effects of their products. Requiring their labels

to tell the truth would devastate their sales and profits. The processed

food industry would suffer huge economic losses. So would the sick care

industry as fewer people suffer degenerative disease. Lots of jobs would be

lost

as people avoided disease-promoting foods.

 

 

And that should be the ultimate goal: A huge downsizing of the junk food

and sick care industries. The smaller they are, the better off the people

are. Ultimately, we should strive to destroy the sick care industry

altogether. The day Big Pharma*s top corporations declare bankruptcy due to a

lack

of sales is the day we*ve achieved something meaningful for the health of

our nation. And we*re not going to get there by taxing sodas without telling

people the truth about how sodas destroy their health

 

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