Nanny State PING!
And Larry is just so damn skinny! Being serious; Larry is fat, according to Larry it’s because Larry eats junk food, so Larry is also rich, so how much would you have to tax junk food to get rich Larry to eat more healthy?
We never had chips or soda when I was growing up so those things aren’t a big deal but keep your grubby hands off my chicken fried steak, hot biscuits with lots of real butter, gravy, mashed potatoes and my hot fudge sauce on my Blue Belle ice cream!
Eventually, since it’s all about STATIST control, when the gubmint figures out that they can save money by encouraging people to get fat and smoke 4 packs a day, they will reverse course and end encourage it since they think it will save money if the obese and smokers die sooner and save social security money.
Think I’m joking. See this in the latest CBO report.
http://tobaccoanalysis.blogspot.com/2012/11/new-england-journal-of-medicine.html?m=1
New England Journal of Medicine Commentary Argues Against Cigarette Tax Increase Because It Would Save So Many Lives that Payments for Social Security Would Increase
A commentary published yesterday in the New England Journal of Medicine argues against a federal cigarette tax increase because it would save so many lives that tens of thousands of people would live longer, resulting in increased Social Security and Medicare payments years later.
(See: Baumgardner JR, Bilheimer LT, Booth MB, Carrington WJ, Duchovny NJ, Werble EC. Cigarette taxes and the federal budget — report from the CBO. New England Journal of Medicine 2012; 367:2068-2070.)
The authors, from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), estimate the effects of a 50 cent per pack increase in the federal cigarette tax on the federal budget over a 70-year period. They find that while health care spending would substantially decrease, this effect would eventually be offset by increases in Social Security and Medicare spending because tens of thousands of people would live longer and thus be eligible for these programs.
The authors conclude that: “By 2035, some 63,000 additional adults would be alive because of the higher cigarette tax. And by 2085 (the final year of the analysis), more than 3 million adults would be nonsmokers because of the policy, including about 200,000 who would otherwise have died earlier.”
However, they also find that: “The reduction in federal outlays would total $730 million over the period between 2013 and 2021. During the second decade, however, the effects on longevity would begin to dominate and federal spending would be higher than it would have been otherwise — an effect that would continue through 2085. The two principal drivers of that increase in spending would be Social Security and Medicare. Improvements in longevity from a reduction in smoking tend to have their greatest effect on the size of the elderly population and thus tend to boost spending on programs aimed at that population.”
The Rest of the Story
This is one of the most perverse policy analyses that I have ever seen, and it is certainly the most perverse one that I have ever seen published in a medical journal. The authors are actually putting forward the argument that a major consideration in public health policy should be the fact that by saving tens of thousands of lives, a policy may result in increased spending for Social Security and Medicare because people will live longer.
Can you imagine the same argument being put forward regarding an analysis of whether the federal government should require health insurance companies to cover mammography? Would anyone in their right mind advance the argument that we should not require coverage for mammography screening because it would save the lives of thousands of younger women, therefore increasing Social Security spending because they will now live to be 65, rather than dying in their 40s or 50s and thus not becoming a drain on the system?
Thanks for the ping!