Also. People smoking is not going to bring down society.

Yeah Moore is hardly the epitome of unbiased reporting.

@Kasz. It won't bring down society but society would be better off if people didn't do it.

Because this way provides a standard level of healthcare for the smoker and the entire population. I see healthcare as a right and not a commodity and socialised healthcare provides it as a right, and to provide it as a right it requires funding from somewhere. For example;

70% of two parent families on income support in the UK spend >15% of their household budget on cigarettes. These people have no way of paying for treatment when they contract lung cancer in a true private healthcare system as they have no real money*. But with the money they have contributed via tobacco taxes, in a public healthcare system they will be guarenteed a certain level of treatment.

*Additionally, in a private system they wont pay much tax on cigarettes so they can afford to smoke more, meaning that the eventual treatmnent they require will often be expensive and severe.

First off, did you ever consider that these people would make more money if they weren't given income support from the government? Its easy to become complaisant in a job, or to pay people 'Crap', if the government is willing to ensure that they have a living wage.

Beyond that, why isn't it an individuals responsibility to provide their own healthcare by making choices about what is important to them? If you look at your example and assume that these couples are smoking (roughly) a pack a day each, by simply quiting smoking or the government eliminating the tax on smoking, 70% of two income families on income support in the UK would have a massive portion of the money they needed to pay for healthcare; and they would have the choice to spend it on healthcare or to (potentially) put it towards something which might be worth more in the long run (like education to get better paying jobs).

Finally, obesity has been estimated to cost in the range of $1,500 per person in additional healthcare costs, do you believe that it is reasonable for the government to start charging households $1,500 tax for every member of the house who is obese?

@HappySquirrel. You don't tax them directly, you put taxes on junk food. And yeah, I quite like the idea.

It all depends on whether you view healthcare as a universal right, I do and as such along with education and defense among other things I view it as something which the government is obliged to provide for all of its citizens.

First point, I think you've picked up on a small detail there, of course I acknowledge that if welfare didn't exist they could have more earning potential because the motivation exists. It was just a minor detail in the example. Even if welfare didn't exist you would still have poor people with little disposable income who unfortunately would damage their bodies without taking into account how they would eventually pay medical bills.

It's not an individuals responsibility to provide healthcare for two reasons in my opinion.

1. Healthcare should be a right wherever available and not a commodity,

2. People who live in 'poverty' are unlikely to seek out healthcare as pro-actively as a rich person because they would see it as a large cost which can be avoided.

This second point goes further in that if the tax was reduced or they stopped smoking alltogether, then the money they save 'could' go on healthcare. But these people are poor so they probably have other costs to take into consideration outside of healthcare such as housing and food which may not have been adequate before because they were living on such a tight budget.

Obesity is a problem, admittedly not in the same way as smoking is a choice (albeit an addictive choice), where as obesity is sometimes an unfortunate consiquence, my dad is obese but it's part of a glandular problem he developed in his 40's.

However, it could be feasable that some tax on unhealthy foods could go towards treatment of the people that eat high in fat foods anyway. So it doesn't go to just treat obese people but people who develop other conditions such as heart disease due to unhealthy diets. We do it with alcohol in this manner already and it would suprise me if we do it with unhealthy food.

Taxing a household direct due to obesity though is very unfair and I would rebel against such a move.

Why?  Not everyone who eats junkfood is obese?  Your targeting people who are healthy but may like junkfood for no reason.

If I like a hamburger every once and again but am balancing that out vs many other healthy activities i'd get screwed.

In fact i can eat junkfood but be way healthier via exercise and making sure i eat the right things outside of that then someone who doesn't eat junkfood.

So you admit that taxes on cigarretes take money that some poor people need for food.  Which was one of my points earlier everyone seemed to glaze over.  Since these taxes are in fact very regressive since the poor are more likely the smoke.

The poor are more likely to eat junk food too actually so Rath's tax would hit them harder.

Hey the poor are just more likely to be sick in general.  Since we're making people who cost the system more pay more money perhaps they should pay a higher tax.

Junkfood has an overall negative impact on societies health though, a very large one at that. Taxing unhealthy food seems sensible given that.

Why not just tax the person? Require a physical every year or two, and based on your health, you get an added income tax.