Regarding the bold above, at every grocery store, in every restaurant, in every school cafeteria, there are a million choices other than 'processed foods'. If we have a million other choices over 'processed food', then why are people consuming so much processed food? When you find the answer to this you will see that 'processed food' is not a problem to anything. What people shove into their mouths is a decision the person makes with no gun held to their heads. Obesity is caused by people's bad eating habits...bad lifestyle habits...NOT processed foods...
not just wealth transfer, they actually tell businesses if they can allow smoking in there bars, ect.. nowadays (heck some states have banned smoking in your car in public parking lots) I say let the consumer\business decide, if they want smokeless bars, then the demand will be filled, the government forcing something like that on the people they do not want is wrong also the gov forcing the cigarette makers to put carpet glue in their cigarettes and then call them unhealthy is just crazy, cigarette smokers should be able to sue the government for harming their health .
interesting isn't it, but it's really just common sense, the elderly are the most expensive group, so the longer you live the more potential for higher medical costs, the reason the insurance companies "let" the government create universal health care for the elderly was for a reason.... it added to their bottom line
Let's make this simple then. Any product whose main ingredient is suger or some other version of sugar(HFCS) is taxed. This tax can only be used to subsidize fruits and vegetables in their unprocessed form.
The bottom line is often too broad a brush. Insurance average lifetime medical expenses. Poor health reduces life time incomes. The real questions are: How much do the healthy elderly cost per year? How much do they earn over their lifetime. How much do they pay in income and payroll taxes over their lifetime? How much do those sick with obesity, or smoking cost per year? How much do they earn over their lifetime? How much do they pay in income and payroll taxes over their lifetime?
My point is, government is often wrong. Despite that, it has assumed the roll of babysitter in chief, so they entrench that error with tax, regulation, law, and department. When has a department shut down? How often has a tax, regulation, or law been eliminated?
I doubt anything you mention had anything to do with why the insurance companies let the government take over the health care coverage for the elderly, I think that was all decided by the bottom line
Except the government only takes care of part of the health care coverage - that is why there are supplemental insurances (paid for by SSI income?!?). As far as insurance companies "let" government. I don't think insurance companies had any more to do with it than they did with ObummerCare.
If it's a free market solution then the markets will determine what sells and what does not sell and for how much. IMO this is government meddling in areas which they should not meddle...especially when they start talking taxation to 'control the masses'. What's idiotic about taxing sugary drinks is that Americans consume sugar in so many other things than sugary sodas. I challenge anyone to go into a grocery store and find average foods that don't contain sugar. Fruits contain sugar! In CA they want to tax sugary drinks 1 cent per ounce...I think? So 12 cents extra per can of soda...this won't slow down anyone! This issue is like so many other government issues; political Band-aid knee-jerk approach to problem solving...yet nothing ever changes...
insurance companies wanted the individual mandate... don't kid yourself (that is the only part of congress-care republicans support) .
If you guys got half as upset about the Monsanto subsidies, as you do the idea that we would tax unhealthy food to subsidize healthy food, you might have the credibility of a politician, or a rapist, which would be a step up in credibility!!
And, the Democrats didn't vote it in? Look at how much money the Dems get from insurance companies, and the healthcare industry, and the Repub's. That is why I didn't say Dem, I didn't say Repub, I said government, for a reason.
Monsanto's subsidies are peanunts compares to the profits assured by patent law and gooberment regulation. - - - Updated - - - But, then what would the nanny state do for a living? They are our leaders, aren't they doing a good job.....
Patent laws, and regulation that Monsanto got passed, like when they outlawed the machines used to gather seeds that reproduce in certain states, or all their GMO patents? Sounds like more reasons you lack credibility in not holding ConagraMonsantoDow to the same standard..
Without gooberment collaberation? I have a CA "Yes on 37" bumper sticker on my car - just because gooberment has been bought off, doesn't mean we need to eat the insecticide / herbicide genetically engineered into food. How can I hold corporations guilty for pursuing their profits if gooberment, and the media, refuse to do their job? Worse yet, when politicians go to those corporations and ask what they can do to assure their financial "support"?
I don't feel the need to seperate the two. I like to refer to it as the evil alliance. No need to seperate our corporate government from our communist corporations. My question lies in why the idea of a tax on unhealthy food that went 100% to fund the subsidization of healthy food offends you so much more then the corporate cronyism Monsanto engages in.
Because you are relying on the evil alliance to do good. The market has too many evil people competing for my dollar that the only way the succeed is by being good. Not out of altruism, or getting elected, but because that is the only way they earn it. Checks and balances.... By the way, when you give up meat, that more than offsets the higher cost for organic / non-GMO produce.
I think you will find if we just seperate the two from each other, that they will both go back to serving their intended purpose. We need a speraration of government and corporations the way we have a seperation of church and state.
How do you propose to do that? How do you propose to do that? The only way to fix is to reduce the power of government so much that there is no "return on bribery".
There will always be a return on bribery, as law makers will always have the ability to change the law. We started this conversation on patent laws, and regulation. How do you purpose we get rid of patent law, and regulations such as what the FAA does? Where is this utopia where there is no need for an SEC because insider trading, or price fixing no longer exists? You asked for my solution, which is simple. Ban private money in Federal elections, and force lobbying onto the public record so they have no mechanism to bribe the politician, or for the politican to benefit from the sold influence.
