Fat Tax, Redux
Categories: Uncategorized
Written By: Tax Rascal
The fat tax proposal is back, and it hasn’t exactly slimmed down. Now, instead of a statewide tax hike, we might get a nationwide effort to raise taxes on soda, alcohol, sodium, and trans fats.
Inside sources tell the Tax Rascal that this proposal is just a preliminary one, and that the full plan also includes a cost-saving cap-and-trade system, reducing the total number of flavors available to an easily managable group including stalwarts like “Bitter,” and “Bland,” as well as new introductions like “Asphalty,” and “Shame.”
Okay, maybe not. But it’s still a bad plan. The jury’s still out on whether or not taxing this kind of stuff would actually lead to better health (or would just lead to people trying unhealthier alternatives). And even if it is the right thing to do, there’s always the question of why that’s the right way to cover the extra health costs of people with unhealthy habits.
A rule like this basically says that the way to charge for health care is to figure out how much people are likely to cost the system, and then charge them in advance based on that. But that doesn’t make much sense: it’s like a restaurant charging people when they come in the door, based on who looks like they’d want steak and wine and who looks like they’d want a burger and coke. Why guess what people will do, and charge them based on guesses, instead of waiting to see what they do, and charging them for that?
The answer exposes a weird contraction in how we view health: we’re happy punishing people for something fun (like eating, when they eat too much), but not happy to punish people for something painful they deserve (like having an unhealthy lifestyle that leads to health problems). So we find punishable fun that leads to un-punishable pain. It makes more sense to just get over it, and start charging people when they make us spend money, not when they enjoy themselves and make us think they will.
