Comments on: Fast foodies cut back when prices go up

By: VMR

VMR — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 18:02:40 +0000

You can tax my tortilla when you pry it from chile covered fingers

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LcyJZhAvv2c

By: Elisabeth

Elisabeth — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 18:30:34 +0000

Rich, I wonder how all those people with cancer would feel about having to pay directly for their own healthcare. Are you suggesting that a four-year-old with leukemia was not exercising enough personal responsibility and her family should therefore have to pay the full cost of her treatment? I don’t imagine you really do think this. But in order to make the personal responsibility a component of healthcare costs you’d have to have a system of penalizing “bad” behaviors. Can you imagine the outcry from the “Don’t tread on Me” crowd?

By: Laura J.

Laura J. — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 18:18:38 +0000

This is exactly why we don’t need universal health care- the government will be trying to control every movement that affects health care dollars. This seems less about helping people make the right choices and more about funneling them like cattle through a controlled maze. Surely it can be justified as “what’s best for them”…let them choose what is best for them! Yes, we want people to make good choices and be healthy- but that is their call, not ours. Ditto Rich on personal responsibility.

By: GAPeach

GAPeach — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 04:57:28 +0000

@Alex–groceries, includiing produce, are subject to county sales taxes in GA but not the state sales tax. I assume then that GA was not included in the study.

By: Marco

Marco — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 22:27:07 +0000

@Rich: You do realize that healthy foods cost much more than eating off the dollar menu at McDonalds every day, most poor people cannot afford prices for food that won’t kill them. This may not apply to people on food stamps though, not sure how that works, i.e. if there is a low limit to their food budget.

By: Rich

Rich — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 21:01:02 +0000

Instead of subsidizing healthy foods, we could let people pay more of their healthcare costs directly, so that those who choose to eat poorly and suffer the resulting bad health, have to pay for the bad consequence of their decisions. That is, in effect a “subsidy” for healthier habits.

Personal responsibility, without government intervention. We should try it.

By: Marco

Marco — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 18:02:49 +0000

Alternatively, in the U.S. at least, we could subsidize healthy foods instead of corn so that products like high-fructose corn syrup don’t end up in every food product we eat.

Just a thought.

By: Alex Heyden

Alex Heyden — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 22:47:58 +0000

It can’t be reduced from zero. Where I come from, and where the most of researchers come from, produce (along with most unprepared food) is not taxed at the consumer level. Alabama is the only exception in that list.

By: Stephen W. O'Driscoll

Stephen W. O'Driscoll — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 18:15:55 +0000

I notice the emphesis is on rasing taxes on fast foods. Lowering taxes on healthy foods would be a better system since more pepole would be able to afford healthy food.