Should obese people pay extra tax

He might be able to pay for it. I doubt his poorest citizens would though.

They want the money, not for him to get better.

No compassion, just greed?

Your poorest citizens would take it on the chin.

What are you, Robin Hood or something?

I'm just a caring person. They still exist, you know.

I don't really have the time right now, but if you are genuinely interested and non-partisan I can detail it to you tomorrow or perhaps later tonight, because there are already existing ideas that others and also myself have given thought to.

Briefly; during the period of Liberal Capitalism, at no point in time was the number of people who had access to a doctor or some form of education going down.

He might be able to pay for it. I doubt his poorest citizens would though.

They want the money, not for him to get better. No compassion, just greed?

You're not so caring when the police turn up with batons and bundle people into cars for not paying into an elaborate extortion racket.

Supply and demand.

What you think everything in society needs compassion to function? I don't care if my doctor wants my money, or wants to help people in need, or both - I care about whether he stops me dying.

You saying under the NHS no doctors work for a salary, ALL doctors are compassionate? Would we have any doctors if they weren't paid to do it? What a terrible criticism of a private health servise that is.

To bring this back on topic; private health totally resolves the issue. If people pay for their own health care only - then the only person losing out from you being unhealthy (being fat etc) is yourself, and not other taxpayers.

To bring this back on topic; private health totally resolves the issue. If people pay for their own health care only - then the only person losing out from you being unhealthy (being fat etc) is yourself, and not other taxpayers.

The thing is this brings other problems, for example should someone who has a family history of cervical cancer for example or someone who is born with an illness be charged more for their health insurance? They can't control this but the insurance company would be reluctant to cover them for the same premium as a healthy individual with no family history of illness.

Fat tax would probably be a positive thing...it would be one more incentive for obese people to lose weight? If being fat was expensive as well as unhealthy, more people may actually exercise...

You think I have a choice? The fact is simply that the vast majority of this country does NOT have a choice, because the Government has made that choice for them at their point of birth; we'll plan your life for you from the cradle to the grave!

It still shows that I am planning your life for you. How about electricity consumption? Or how much waste you throw away? Or the content of the food you eat? Are you telling me you are the perfect human who has no faults that a Government planning tax or regulation could not pick up on?

Yeah, you're right - you can drive me from my home because I don't want to follow your master Socialist plan. Oh, and by the way, that's called Capital Flight: go read about it and it's effects on a modern service economy.

Yeah, you're right, obviously - scrapping discriminatory taxes on consumption are going to bring down the welfare state and plunge our glorious Socialist system into poverty. Laissez-faire economies are always the most technologically advanced and the producers of the greatest quantity and quality of consumer goods at their point in the history of economic development. Britain was the richest per capita country in the 19th Century and early 20th, the United States in the late 20th Century, and Hong Kong and Singapore in the 21st Century.

In the name of making all people equal the eventual result of Socialism and its wide-spread implementation in daily economic life is the planning of not only economic production but the planning of daily life to fit with this economic plan. We staved off this process during the 80s and reverted to the right side of things, but as long as the Government maintains a strong grasp on the economy planning of daily life with necessarily sneak in.

Oh yes. Discrimination is a positive thing. How could I have thought otherwise?

Usually, junk fatty foods are the cheapest. Consider a relatively poor family who live on McDonalds and junk food. Being taxed more would mean they have even less money to spend on food. So they would either eat worse quality food (potentially worse for their health) or not eat at all (which isn't exactly the best course of action).

I completely disagree with this argument from the health point of view. If fat people pay their fair share of tax and contribute to national insurance as appropriate, there is absolutely no reason as to why they should not be entitled to the same level of healthcare as thinner people.

Why should they pay more? How do you decide who is obese and who isn't - measurements such as the BMI does not account for muscle mass so really isn't indicative over how fat someone is.



Thank you. Someone with some sense! +rep coming your way.

Thank you. Someone with some sense! +rep coming your way.

By increasing tax on unhealthy foods it allows for healthy foods to be subsidised, so your argument doesn't hold up.
Also I refuse to believe that a family eating at mcdonalds everyday can't afford to eat healthily.

But I don't agree with taxing fat people more, because like I said you'd have to tax people based on every aspect of their lives if this happened.

Not everyone who eats unhealthy food are fat. In fact on the rare occasions that I happened to be in McDonalds, I notice that most people are really quite thin - certainly not overweight or even obese. So would thin people have to pay tax on unhealthy food too? Does the Government consider fatty food to be a demerit good without any regard as to customer wants or utility?

Is there any aspect of our lives that doesn't get intervened in?

That's... not entirely true. Look at America: the poor are actually more likely to be obese than the rich. Having millions of people too sick to work and too poor to afford healthcare is hardly good for a market economy.

The fact is that no man is an island: we are all, I'm afraid, interdependent, and the health of others does affect us.

holy ****, thanks XD

Would we have any doctors if they weren't paid to do it?

I would argue that there would be many. Just as there are many individuals who carry out charitable work across the world for free. They do not get paid yet they carry on,often under extremely trying circumstances, with a sense of compassion and purposefulness.

only losers can work for free and pretend that they are doing something useful