A big enough tax on fast food could probably cover it, with the added bonus of decreasing the amount needed.
If that doesn't work, then there are a lot of programs they can cut that are less important than healthcare.
Exactly this kind of statement is what worries some about universal healthcare. I highly support single payer, universal healthcare. But statements like this undermine the cause by feeding fuel to the idea universal healthcare will inherently lead to more government intrusion into your personal decisions.
Is that worse than corporate intrusion? Does your health insurance not factor these things in already?
Yes. You sometimes have a choice about which corporation you deal with. You don't get a choice when it comes to the government.
But you do get a vote, you don't get that with a corporation.
Try that with taxes.
People wouldn't care except that your "personal" decision affects them.
(1) Everyone pays for the public health care system e.g. hospitals. So if you're increased risk of serious disease results in increased visits or treatments then that's my problem as well.
(2) Everyone pays for insurance. So if you're making premiums more expensive then that affects me too.
Yes it's perfectly logical under a single payer, universal healthcare system. So the reaction by some is: this is exactly why we should not have universal healthcare.
> Everyone pays for insurance. So if you're making premiums more expensive then that affects me too.
It muddies the water quite a bit by having a marketplace of different private insurance companies. If you see me doing something risky you have no clue whether or not I'm even covered under the same insurance company as you. So maybe I am, maybe I'm not affecting your premiums. Single payer universal healthcare removes all doubt.
These type of taxes are the only way I'm in favor of government healthcare programs. Cigarettes, alcohol, and junk food directly increase medical costs, and people who indulge (and over indulge) in those things should be partly responsible for those increased costs.
Actually, all those things you listed _decrease_ lifetime medical costs. From a purely economic sense, people who drink, smoke, and eat junk food are _ideal_. They're reasonably healthy during their most productive years, and then mortality rate spikes just before retirement (a time when most people are least productive).
So if the logic is that we tax things based solely on economic externalities, then we should encourage drinking, smoking, and obesity. We should subsidize all those activities.
Check Google for numbers that back this up; usually the analysis is done against the U.K. health care system/NHS.
Actually, the numbers don't back that up. A person doesn't get diabetes and die the next day with no medical costs. A smoker doesn't get lung cancer and die tomorrow. They might not live as long, but their medical costs are higher the entire time, and the older they get, the higher the costs become. Eating poorly is especially costly because it doesn't kill people quickly, but causes significant health problems.
> So if the logic is that we tax things based solely on economic externalities, then we should encourage drinking, smoking, and obesity. We should subsidize all those activities.
No, the logic is that we provide healthcare to everybody so that they can have longer, healthier lives. Makes no sense to waste money on the people actively working against that goal, so if smokers/drinkers/fatties want to take part then they need to cover the extra costs they've created for themselves.
Probably not; it would take a huge chunk of US fast food revenue, and probably more than California's.
https://www.franchisehelp.com/industry-reports/fast-food-ind...
> If that doesn't work, then there are a lot of programs they can cut that are less important than healthcare.
The amount that would need to be cut is pretty much all the non-healthcare spending in the state budget (including the spending that directly produces revenue, yet it requires that the revenue come in anyway.)