The health issue of the day is obesity. How to stop the epidemic, how to get fat people to stop taking in an excess of calories. How about a tax on fizzy drinks?
At the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale, where no one is fat because the upper class isn't, Kelly D. Brownell is convinced that a penny per ounce tax on sugary beverages would have an immediate impact on obesity.
Why is such an enormous tax justified? Because so much public money is funneled into Medicaid to pay for obesity related health issues like diabetes and high blood pressure. You know who's getting Medicaid, of course.
It's poor people who are chugging Coca-Cola like water and they turn a deaf ear to Yalies and other elite intellectuals who tell them it's bad. The fact that liter bottles of carbonated beverages are far cheaper than a liter of milk or Evian water doesn't matter. If the inner-city folks won't follow the rules, they'll have to be hit over the head financially to get them to pay attention.
Sure they'll notice when their food stamps don't go as far, with a 12-pack of Fanta costing $1.44 more.
It's hoped that they'll stop buying high fructose corn syrup sweetened products and switch to chemically flavored junk. If they do develop cancer or brain lesions from aspartame or saccharin, they've got Medicaid to cover their medical expenses, so it's a win-win situation.
The soda tax has the potential to generate billions, as long as poor Medicaid recipients keep buying the stuff. It's also suggested that raising the cost would decrease consumption. Of course, in that case billions wouldn't be generated as sales declined, not unlike the higher taxes put on tobacco products.
Tax the poor, make them pay for their bad habits. They're the ones who do most of the smoking and have the higher obesity rates, and we the taxpayers have to pay for their health care. If we're footing the bill, don't we have a right to control what Medicaid recipients put into their bodies?
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