Canada Values Health - Dialogue on Health Care -

Should we be taxing the source of high health care costs more?

2009-03-09 09:29:15

Should governments place higher taxes on cigarettes, alcohol, processed foods and other items that cause poor health and increased health care use? Should governments provide incentives on items that promote health, like fresh vegetables, exercise equipment and gym memberships?

Your responses
Stop Smoking Habits Anonymous Posted: 2010-04-21 18:51:55 Cigarette smoking is dangerous to your health, my health and others health. If taxing will be increase, well definitely the number of smokers will also decrease. If the number of smokers will decrease, we can have time to take good care of our selves. We are the citizen of our country, therefore a healthy citizen is a precious jewel to his/her country. <a href="http://www.stopsmokinghabits.com/">Quit Smoking</a> ___ Anonymous
The high cost of quitters. benvan04 Posted: 2009-10-17 17:43:24 Quitting smoking? Instead of dying around age 65 a quitter is now going to live till 82. and instead of dying before he collects any pension, the quitter will now collect about $450.000 on pensions and will have had knee and hip surgery, diabetes treatment, $30.000 pharmacare, and in his last five years will die an expensive high care old age death: Hospital care for repeated heart attacks at best, Alzheimer disease at worse. In total the quitter will cost society a little short of a million dollars each. The biggest source of high health care cost, is not any disease, it is our increasing longevity. Health care has become the victim of its own success. Health care costs are going to continue spiraling out of control. It is going to get worse, because we are going to be living longer and longer. There is that elephant in the room.
obesity is now costing more Roto Posted: 2009-06-19 12:37:30 Years ago the order of most expensive health care issues was seta belts, then smoking, then the rest. Smokers still cost employers on average much more than non smokers, close to 35% more. And it is more easily identified as contributing to many fo the most costly health issues. Obesity is catching up and will pass if we continue to address the smoker situation. Discrimination is an issue to face in both cases and I expect that until there is an ability to make change the behaviours of the obese which requires incentives or penalties, one cannot address the problem. Incentives of this type often reward those that already take care of themselves so may be of limited value, unfortunately it is the penalties, the higher cost that will change the behaviour of many of the obese.
obesity is now costing more than cigarettes dwo Posted: 2009-06-15 14:19:51 We need to do something about the health care costs of obesity. While smokers can be discriminated against (a misnomer), it is politically incorrect to discriminate against obese persons. To my mind, to say that cigarette smoking health care costs are the most preventable health care costs facing society is now incorrect. I think obesity has now passed that. So why is it that we don't tax the things that lead to this more heavily? I for one don't buy the excuses, except in a very small minority of persons with thyroid problems perhaps, obesity is certainly preventable, and therefore the health costs associated with it. It's my pet peeve. These people are costing society billions, but this is not frowned upon like smoking is. Don't get me wrong, I frown upon smoking, but I also frown on obesity. Just as we're all educated enough to understand the risks of cigarette smoking and the damage caused in this day of 2009, we are also educated enough to all understand the risks of obesity and the damage caused. My two cents worth (not to be spent on junk food)
Taxing the Source of Health Care Roto Posted: 2009-05-04 10:55:15 Smoking is one of the leading causes of health care costs and is already taxed, why not ban it rather than increase taxes. To change behaviours, one often has to put a price on the behaviour and I am not sure the taxes on cigarettes is the best place, how about if smokers had to pay for health care. If a smoket is 35% more expensive than a non-smoker and the average cost was $5000 a person, then a non-smoker should be covered at $4300 by the government and a smoker should pay out of pocket $1500 to cover the additional cost. This might be far more effective. People could also be rewarded for good behaviours such as exercise, keeping their weigth down, taking Health risk assessments and actions to improve their health. There are many garage sales with exercise equipment that have been seldom used. One needs to incent the behaviour and the outcome, how the individual spends the incentive should be up to the individual as there is "no one size fits all" program.
Agree PatrickLouch Posted: 2009-04-23 08:41:43 Yes, they should, but for the most part they already do. It's econ 101 taxing negative externalities. Cigarette taxes can't go any higher otherwise smuggling will explode. A tax on processed foods is a good idea - a bit of an administrative nightmare, but good. Subsidies however are bad. People don't need a gym to be active and this will just create more distortions. Don't subsidize vegetables. A tax on the bad stuff is sufficient. @ ann carson The best thing to do is to tax the bad things (alcohol and cigarettes and bad food) and then cut income taxes. This makes it a wash for the poor. Their expenses go up by $200, but their income goes up by $200 so they are actually better off (because they could choose to do whatever they want with the income).Â Food allowances are good in theory, but the most efficient way to do it is still to tax the bad stuff and give them more money (through lower general taxes) and trust them to make good decisions (which they will because the good decisions are cheaper).Â If they don't, then it's likely a sign of mental illness (disregard for health of self and children is textbook depression) or poor education. And that goes beyond the scope of the discussion, although the education system is poor and does need increased focus on Phys Ed (it increase physical health and academic achievement). @ DigitalHeath That is a long string of inanities. Taxes on cigarettes discourage smoking in kids. The tax revenues don't need to go directly to pay for health care because the deterrent effect already covers the costs. Furthermore, current tobacco revenue is estimated to be roughly double the tobacco's health-care costs. Prohibition makes things violently worse, and so it is a curious argument for "health". You are right about the funding of anti-smoking, but it already does that. @ salee Textbook econ 101. @ arthur Faire enough, but that's more a sin of spending than of taxes. If government is to collect any taxes than these are the ones it should collect. If you have the choice to tax income or cigarettes, you choose cigarettes - thT tax actually has a positive efficiency gain as opposed to most tax's huge loss. @ lister Spot-on, but I disagree with allowing subsidies at all. As for gasoline, those taxes should exist to pay for roads, global warming research, idiotic subsidies of alternate transportation (better to remove the subsidies, I know). It's a pain that gasoline taxes it hurt rural people more, but higher property taxes hurt the urban. This is a matter of efficiency, not equity.
taxing the source of high health costs ann carson Posted: 2009-03-12 14:53:41 Poverty is the biggest issue here. "Other items that cause poor health" like cheap processed foods, starchy foods etc are all the poor can afford to eat. The incentive to buy healthy foods is a weekly or monthly food allowance (not to be spent on alcohol or cigarettes) to people living at or below the poverty line--different for different areas of the country. The taxing government is the biggest beneficiary of higher taxes on cigarettes and alcohol
The situation for cigarettes needs a big rethink DigitalHealth Posted: 2009-03-12 13:58:37 There is no longer any doubt at all in the connection between cigarettes and cancer. With 100% certainty this should result in direct and forceful action. It boggles the mind that problems in the food industry become big news when people are dying every day from cancer and other health issues directly caused by cigarettes. Is is not simply self evident and logical to stop this situation immediately? The sale of cigarettes need to be stopped right away. Does that not make direct sense? Increasing the taxes on cigarettes is unlikely to work since by the time any new law passes the tax revenue will just end up going into the general budget instead of funding the health care costs of cigarettes. The taxes then in a strange way just become a political incentive to continue to keep the cigarette business running as a source of revenue. If for some bizarre immoral reason, Canada continues to allow the sale of cigarettes, then we need a more direct mechanism to assign the huge health care burden of cigarettes to the companies responsible. It would be nice to think that a method of directly billing the entire medical cost of each lung cancer patient to the cigarette company responsible would be possible. But perhaps the tobacco industry could be forced to set up a fund that would cover 100% of these costs. Cigarette companies should also cover 100% of the costs of programs and products that would help people quit smoking. They are selling a product that kills people and is 100% addictive at the same time. They need to help people quit in a huge way perhaps even paying out a big cash incentive to successful quiters! This bizarre situation of any company being allowed to sell an addictive product that kills people in a slow painful way might be a sad comment on the state of our society but right now we need to look at the problem with fresh eyes and not allow the huge cost to be pushed onto our already overburdened public health care system.
Should we be taxing the source of high health care costs more? salee Posted: 2009-03-11 06:48:07 Definitely. Private enterprises are making profits, but the taxpayers are paying the bills. Companies pollute, our health suffers ...guess who pays for healthcare?
Should we be taxing the source of high health care costs more? arthur Posted: 2009-03-10 16:01:33 No, Government takes enough taxes to waste on their pet projects. Leave us alone to live our lives!!!! Let us have PRIVATE HEALTH CARE & it can regulate what it covers....
Taxing unhealthy habits Tracy Lister Posted: 2009-03-09 09:36:26 Currently processed foods are less expensive to purchase than healthy foods, which is just unbelievable. We should be taxing those activities that impact health negatively and providing tax breaks for those activities that have a positive effect on health. Allowing gym memberships to be a tax deduction is a good idea but only if combined with an outcome such as proof of participation or reaching goals. Taxing gasoline more to provide incentives to alternative transportation ony works in cities where there is effective public transit. In more rural areas we have no choice but drive. We can't even carpool due to working part time vs full time and different shifts.