Hungary Introduces "Fat Tax"

[TLopez]

"The idea is to target the people accused of causing the health care deficit and get them to help foot their own bill."

http://healthfreedoms.org/2011/09/18...x-are-we-next/

Sounds good to me. Here are the top 10 causes of death in America:

Here's the list according to the CDC including # of deaths/year:

1) Heart disease - 631,636
2) Cancer - 599,888
3) Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases) - 137,119
4) Chronic lower respiratory disease - 124,583
5) Accidents (unintentional injuries) - 121,599
6) Diabetes - 72,449
7) Alzheimer's disease - 72,432
8) Influenza & Pneumonia - 56,326
9) Kidney disease (nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, nephrosis) - 45,344
10) "Blood poisoning" - Septicemia - 34,234

[thedunhill225]

I love how everyone here always wants THEIR freedoms protected....screw what the next guy chooses to do. While we are at it lets hurt businesses and then bitch about unemployment and crime rates..... God I hope none of this crap passes in my great country but I would no longer be shocked....after all the gov knows best and I need them to protect me from me!!

[RedSkull]

Ironic for a country called Hungary.

(I'm here all week)

[Sammich]

Ironic for a country called Hungary.

(I'm here all week)

I swear to God I came in here to post exactly that. :usa2:

[RedSkull]

[thedunhill225]

"Let's see if this will work. Only time will tell."

What?

I just don't get how people don't care about freedoms that they THINK don't effect them. Hey here is a tip the the brainiacs that think something like this will just effect 'fat' people....competitive BBrs are OVER WT!! Start with high fat foods....then it will be high cal foods...then it will include "wt gain" supplements....then it will just be a tax on all people with a bmi the gov don't like.

Sorry if I sound testy but I can't stand when the gov stomps on the 'lill guy'.... How many here have really been POOR? I know some of us have.... How would an extra tax on whatever foods the gov don't want you eating have effected you then?

I just don't get it.

BTW, high protein diets lead to greater gas being produced by the human body (for several reasons) so if we are concerned about mother earth we must protect it and tax protein higher....high fiber also increases gas so tax that also....sugar from fruits can be used in calorie dense foods so tax that more.... More people sweating will add to global warming to tax exercise equipment and gym memberships.... Tax work out cloths also.... And on and on and on....

[dakoose]

I don't necessarily have a huge problem with a fat tax, as long as it's actually applied properly. What if some skinny high school athlete is in tremendous shape wants a candy bar once in a while? Why should he pay the tax just because someone else got fat off that same candy bar?

What should be done is some type of extra taxes charged to those who are tested and deemed obese or unhealthy. What about those of us here who are healthy and Skipload? Why should I pay a tax on foods that I won't be getting fat off of?

Tax the fat, not the food they got fat off of. It's not fair to those who know how to enjoy those foods in moderation or in a way that won't bring about negative health.

[syssstem]

"The idea is to target the people accused of causing the health care deficit and get them to help foot their own bill."

http://healthfreedoms.org/2011/09/18...x-are-we-next/

Sounds good to me. Here are the top 10 causes of death in America:

Here's the list according to the CDC including # of deaths/year:

1) Heart disease - 631,636
2) Cancer - 599,888
3) Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases) - 137,119
4) Chronic lower respiratory disease - 124,583
5) Accidents (unintentional injuries) - 121,599
6) Diabetes - 72,449
7) Alzheimer's disease - 72,432
8) Influenza & Pneumonia - 56,326
9) Kidney disease (nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, nephrosis) - 45,344
10) "Blood poisoning" - Septicemia - 34,234

that link you provided doesn't work. do you have a working link to a government of Hungary website where they officially implemented a "fat tax"?

[thedunhill225]

I don't necessarily have a huge problem with a fat tax, as long as it's actually applied properly. What if some skinny high school athlete is in tremendous shape wants a candy bar once in a while? Why should he pay the tax just because someone else got fat off that same candy bar?

What should be done is some type of extra taxes charged to those who are tested and deemed obese or unhealthy. What about those of us here who are healthy and Skipload? Why should I pay a tax on foods that I won't be getting fat off of?

Tax the fat, not the food they got fat off of. It's not fair to those who know how to enjoy those foods in moderation or in a way that won't bring about negative health.

I'm trying so hard to be the "new nicer Dunhill" so I gotta ask nicely....are you fucking for real?? Do you actually believe what you typed? Have you re-read it and said to yourself "self...now this post about taxing fat people is a great idea"?????


I really don't know what to say but OMT!!!

[thedunhill225]

that link you provided doesn't work. do you have a working link to a government of Hungary website where they officially implemented a "fat tax"?

I'll post a link. Not a gov website but an abc story on this tax and others throughout europe.

http://abcnews.go.com/m/story?id=14429418


Please people THINK!!

[trucelt]

I'm all for a fat tax...why should a certain % of the population watch what they eat, limit thier alcohol and not smoke and then subsidize a group who are completely irresponsible with thier health? Believe me they have every right to eat like McDonalds 2x/day and guzzle a liter of soda every day but I don't want to pay thier health care premium. What happened to personal responsibility?? That's right its the governments fault for "allowing" them to eat McDonalds.

[Lee Salado]

I'm all for a fat tax...why should a certain % of the population watch what they eat, limit thier alcohol and not smoke and then subsidize a group who are completely irresponsible with thier health? Believe me they have every right to eat like McDonalds 2x/day and guzzle a liter of soda every day but I don't want to pay thier health care premium. What happened to personal responsibility?? That's right its the governments fault for "allowing" them to eat McDonalds.

I agree with you. We've spent enough money trying to educate the population on the shared downfalls of obesity. It's not working. Taxing them personally might actually help. When you get your taxes done they should start asking age, height, weight, and bf %.

[thedunhill225]

You gotta be kidding rt? The govs fault for allowing them to eat what they want?

Personal responsibility huh?? Why am I just about 100% certain that the highest tax payers are also some of the least 'fit' people you will meet? Understand I am not saying everyone that is fit or in shape is broke or poor BUT the people that are DRIVEN by business and money and ambition to succeed in business don't seem to be health nuts...they have different priorities. Why should THEY subsidies the average OVER WEIGHT BBr? Can anyone point me to the real science that shows muscle mass to be so much better for a person to carry around than fat if their fitness levels are similar? Cause I've never seen any.
True, you do understand that judging by your pic (cause I don't know your actual wt) that you are over wt and probably obese rt? The only FAIR thing would be to tax you by the pound. Hell wt training ain't gonna extend your life....the only thing I've ever seen proven to extend life and prevent illness at all is being UNDER WT (and that was in rats though there is a long term trial or study going on with humans but it will take decades and decades to get results).

Oh but anyway.....and this is the part I love cause it kinda kills the whole concept....


Have you ever seen the break down of the costs on the country of those that die young from the types of illnesses listed above vs those that live long lives? I guess it would be a shock to learn that in the long run that the people dead before 60 are costing us a lot less money than those that live to be 80+ huh. You wanna save money if that is what matters above our freedoms and liberties then TAX THE HEALTHY for living long lives....they are raping this country.

And true, I ain't trying to be rude or insulting so I hope you don't take it that way. I just am kinda a nut when it comes to personal freedoms and have always thought that we ALL should stand up for EVERYONE'S freedoms and not just what effects us. I do understand the sentiment behind what your saying and I do understand the gut reaction but we should all know by now that the gov just does not belong in our personal lives. Hell we all know that if they DID start anything like that here that it would be abused and expanded without end.

Peace.

[thedunhill225]

I'll find a detailed breakdown but here is part of an article from Bloomberg.

Retirement: Live Long and Don't Prosper Confusion about the life expectancy of the Baby Boom generation bedevils fiscal planning and retirement planning

By Ben Steverman

As the 79-million-strong Baby Boom generation starts hitting age 65, demographers and medical researchers are increasingly at odds over how long they'll live. It's a question with major implications on a national level, for how much Social Security and Medicare will cost future generations of Americans. On a personal level, life expectancy complicates plans for saving and spending: Live too long and risk running out of money; die young and you can't take it with you.

At least one member of a 65-year-old couple can expect to live for another 23 years, to age 88, according to 2010 Social Security data. That's just an average, however, and there is a 30 percent chance of living past 92. Moreover, those numbers are based on when current retirees—the baby boomers' parents—are passing away.

Medical advances are keeping more people alive for longer than ever. The current life expectancy for an American at birth is 77.9 years—58 percent longer than in 1900, when the average life expectancy was 49 years. According to the most recent data available from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, from 2000 to 2007 the rate of death from heart disease, the leading cause of death, plunged 19 percent, while the rate for cancer, the second-leading cause of death, fell 5 percent. Thanks to medication that controls blood pressure and other advances, 95,000 fewer Americans died of heart disease in 2007 than in 2000, even as the population increased.

If such gains continue, as expected, they will swell the federal tab for old-age benefits. Adding 3.1 to 7.9 years to life expectancy by 2050 would add an estimated $3.2 trillion to $8.3 trillion to Medicare and Social Security outlays above current expectations, according to a 2009 study by the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on an Aging Society.

[Lock it Up]

Dun, I think you fail to realize many social implications obesity has. Yes, I am all for America, home of the brave where you can do whatever the hell you want when it doesn't hurt anyone and all that...

But epidemiology teaches me to think otherwise...projections of future rates of obesity are fucking mind boggling. And we, as American tax payers, foot much of the obesity problem's bill. If you broke down what you pay for the fatasses of this country, you'd want change.

I am all for the "idea" of total freedom for everyone, but no one lives in a vacuum. It shouldn't be thought of as "your" life...but as "life". We all play a role in our countrymen's lives....somehow or the other.