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'Fat taxes' could save billons in healthcare costs: study

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Like it did wonders with taxation of cigarettes ?

2 ( +3 / -1 )

Imagine what they'll be taxing in 50 years. Don't they already tax your TV, or is that New Zealand? Don't know enough about Australia, but how will this increase prosperity and freedom?

-3 ( +1 / -4 )

Just another method of control (and money) for the government, if passed.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

Perso am all for it.

Oz is one of the most obese nation in the world (alongside the usual suspects i.e US, P.I, Uk etc) with roughly 2/3 of the population either overweight or obese and something needs to be done.

As long as thousands of hungry jacks, maccas etc offer $6.00 meals i.e jpy500 (coke, fries, burger, couple of nuggets and an ice cream) obesity will always be an issue. Solution is either ban these fast-food chains (imo too drastic, but limiting their presence should be a no brainer) or tax their unhealthy foods. A healthy sandwich, healthy rice dish or salad should never cost more (often twice) than an unhealthy, fatty meal.

In an ideal world (with responsible ppl) sure there would be no need government intervention. Pbm is the vast majority of ppl are lazy, ignorant/uninformed...and poor.

-2 ( +0 / -2 )

This is an excellent idea. So a Big Mac would be something like 5,000 yen. They could also heavily tax the GMO crap that so many food products contain, fructose from "giant corn" and so on.

-3 ( +1 / -4 )

Will a single life be saved NO, you are going to die anyway!!! A longer life? Maybe, or maybe it will just seem longer!

3 ( +3 / -0 )

The theory behind the technology and modelling that calculates disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) is a hierarchical framework to analyze and so predict lifespan thought mathematical assessment brings us back to the questions raised in the How algorithms (secretly) run the world thread.

At the heart of the calculus to evaluate disability-adjusted life years is a bespoke quantitative object detection algorithm. This tech, and yes Otacon512 deliberately afforded a unnecessary nerdy monika, also to make a point, I am not the not the only quant/data analyst to reach this conclusion.

The data consulting business I own and contribute to here in Japan and also in England, a majority of the team feel likewise.The inflated jargon heavy rhetoric raises customer expectations to such a level to believe this tech can justify political objectives, an example is to raise taxes and at the same time make promises of future health care savings, even so far as to make magical claims of extending life.

If I had a day for every government organizations, NGO's, institutions that comes a knocking armed with grant money and requests for services, products and research that can or be made to justify a political policy, or method of rising tax revenue I would live forever.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

In Australia it is MUCH cheaper to eat unhealthy food than it is to eat healthy food. One of my ex girlfriends was from a fairly poor family, and they ate pizza and McDonalds most nights of the week (Pizza was $5 for a large pizza, two of which would feed the family). Luckily she moved out when she was 16, and took a bit better care of herself.

But taxing fast food wont make these people suddenly go out to eat more expensive healthy food - it will just make them have less money left over.

Perhaps a double whammy - tax on unhealthy food plus rebates for healthy food (money raised from the fat tax, could be used to offer the rebate on the healthy stuff.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

Unfortunately many such measures backfire. It is said that diet carbonate drinks are even less healthy than the real thing.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

@edbardoe

It's not just about saving lives. It's also about saving tax money spent on treating diabetes, heart problems, etc. Personally, I'm undecided on the issue, but that's the reasoning.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Instead of the useless rubbish that high school kids are expected to memorise, REAL information on nutrition should be on the curriculum. They should know what goes into fast foods and how they are made. They should know what is healthy and what is not and learn to make good choices for what they want to eat.

This would make it unnecessary to tax unhealthy food.

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

Do it. Why not? But if they are doing it, I hope they lower the costs of healthier foods. A lot of people eat crap because crap is all they can afford. I'm sure a large number of them would go organic or at least eat a little healthier if it was cheaper and more readily available.

0 ( +2 / -2 )

Heck I say tax everything! Seriously though, these taxes seem to always look good on paper but human behavior is not quantifiable. I am sure there are people with good intentions engaging in these studies but I also believe there are people looking for revenue sources.

Taxation should not be used as a mechanism to manipulate human behavior as I do not necessarily believe it works and it usually ends up being a regressive tax.

Here is a pretty good article by The Guardian on this subject matter.

https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2016/mar/16/will-a-sugar-tax-actually-work-budget

2 ( +2 / -0 )

And if you don't eat enough you get starvation tax!

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Governments could just compel the food industry though legislation to reduce the the salt, sugar, fat etc etc. These are a cynical stealth taxes.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

I'd support it. Though this isn't about smoking, one of the reasons that finally helped me quit was the cost of smoking. I know the uproar would be tremendous, unlike it was for smoking. But if the goal is to make the population more healthy and lower health care costs, it is a viable option.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

Reckless

Has that ever worked for tobacco? Bad habits are hard to break, especially if they are addictive like sweeteners (sugar).

Taxing sugar is like souring the milk to persuade them to kick the habit and goes a long way in preventive health measures where social cost can be cut down with less acute cases where you need to be rushed to the hospital by an ambulance and taken to ER for emergency surgery.

Think of it a mandatory requirement for all homes are needed to install a smoke detector.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

Ah...Good ole taxes. How about developing a tax based on how much TV one watches? That would cut med bills as well.

-2 ( +0 / -2 )

@pointofview - I agree and while they are at it I think they should tax the air we breather (as we are breathing in toxins every day) and then after we breathe in tax the air we breathe out based on the carbon emissions.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Isn't it funny we never read stories about increasing the taxes on lobbing and lobbyists?

2 ( +2 / -0 )

If too many people live longer lives, next thing the government will complain about is they can't afford to keep paying pensions.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

Well, I think the jolly old Japanese government should tax fat foods. Let's face it, we're not paying anywhere near enough tax. We should be paying far more. I mean, look at the expenses the government has to pay for. Where can the money come from but taxes?

Giving away all that money in aid and paying to support the US military, the upcoming Olympics, the salaries bonuses and expenses of high level politicians and civil servants. These fellows can't travel economy class and stay at backpacker hostels, can they? It wouldn't do, would it?

They could start by raising consumption tax to 75 percent. Eight percent is far too little!

-3 ( +0 / -3 )

Saturated (and non-hydrogenated) animal fats are healthy especially from pasture fed/wild animals = they are the preferred fats and if heated they stay saturated. If fast food would just switch back to saturated fats instead of unsaturated (soybean, cottonseed, corn) fats people would be much healthier eating this poor grade of food. Unsaturated fats get even more unsaturated (oxidized) with heat and time (unsaturated fat used in a fryer for up to a week).

0 ( +0 / -0 )

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