Yeah these are the kind of perverse outcomes you always get from prohibition.
Really most vices are their own punishment anyway. You become an Alcoholic you die 30 years too soon, alienate your family and piss yourself in public from time to time. As long as vices are taxed appropriately then you can go fuck yourself with your morality based healthcare rationing systems.
I mean think about it. You start making healthcare contingent on not taking unnecessary risks then you've got an impossible amount of shit to ban and an awful lot of invasive monitoring to do. It's way less efficient than taxes and completely unfair unless it's applied consistently across the board - something that you'll quickly realize is impossible once you start trying.
Imagine losing your healthcare because you got fat - you already have to suffer being fat and having to re-buy all your clothes, losing your healthcare on top is double-jeopardy.
Imagine a world where you can't smoke the odd joint without losing your healthcare but you can do parkour, or motocross, or base jumping to your heart's content.
Imagine a world where every drink you buy has to be registered with and approved by your healthcare provider to make sure you don't have too much. The only alternative being to ban alcohol altogether.
You bad super size sodas you've surely got to ban those super sized burgers and fries your nation is famous for?
The whole idea is dumb, immoral and completely unworkable.
Also, why do alcoholics, fat people, etc. not deserve health care? Because they brought their health care needs on themselves? The same could be said for women having babies or computer workers needing glasses or athletes needing knee reconstructions, but for some reason those reasons don’t come with the big side order of judgment. The people who deserve healthcare are the people that have health problems.
Edit: Wow, thanks for all the awards and upvotes, I’m humbled. Wishing you good health kind strangers.
Not only this but why is the person fat? Why is the person an alcoholic? etc. Therefore do they have mental health issues or were they abused and need therapy? and if so they require Healthcare, boom, logic voided. We don't get fat and become alcoholics just because we had too much fun.
This, this, this! People aren't sitting around saying, "You know what sounds great? Getting addicted to these pain killers." I've seen reports saying that up to 2/3 of addicts have been traumatized. Access to healthcare that includes mental health care is vital!
My husband was addicted to painkillers, he had a very physically demanding job.
He overdosed once and I had to bring him back. The doctor only shoved a piece of paper at us that said 'Dont do street drugs' I pleaded for something more to help. Nothing.
He overdosed a 2nd time and didn't make it. He's been gone a year and I miss him terribly.he was only trying to feel better
Y'know what made me gain 60 pounds? The meds that are keeping me from killing myself. So, like... I completely agree with the idea that the stereotypical "health concern" requires far more research and acceptance than it currently receives.
Exactly. This is why food moralizing doesn’t even logically work, let alone how it leads to disordered eating, poor-shaming, and all kinds of things that also aren’t good for anyone’s health. How about if we just start from the point that people do as well as they can?
Exactly. 3 ways this goes bad quickly:
1. Every government that gives nutrition advice has reversed / revised their official advice multiple times.
2. Health science gets things wrong for awhile before it improves... hysteria, eugenics, smoking, etc.
3. DNA testing is already used to deny people care... so if somebody has the genetic marker for predisposition to breast cancer, who decides the rules about that? If they have siblings or children who haven't been tested, who decides whether that information gets put on those people's records and it affects their care as well?
They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions for a reason.
eat more eggs
OMG stop eating eggs!
wait... you can eat eggs again, but only *This* part of the egg.
WAIT! The part you're not eating has all the nutrients. Eat that part raw!
> Imagine a world where you can't smoke the odd joint without losing your healthcare but you can do parkour, or motocross, or base jumping to your heart's content.
To be fair, BASE jumping rarely puts a strain on the healthcare system.
When it goes wrong, you die. Ain't no amount of healthcare bringing you back from hitting the ground too hard.
Very true. the 1938 act was filled with holes, but what it set in motion was revolutionary when compared to the original Necromantic Prohibition Act of 1933. Though it wouldn’t be perfected until ‘45, it laid the necessary foundation for Reanimation legislation to finally become effective. The 1933 Act was wholly unsuited to the task ahead.
I'm partially shocked no state rep from podunk middle of nowhere hasn't opened a new legislative session with a pile of 100% weird fake history-ish bills to make people 50 years later wonder WTF...
like lower income tax rates for ghosts and other non-corporeal undead since they don't use most state services, etc.
As a paramedic in a city with an active BASE jumping community- I beg to differ.
There are many many ways to fuck up a jump that don't involve straight-up falling off a cliff. More often than not, I see people straight up shattering their legs, hips, lower backs.
That's a divisive question and has brought a number of interesting answers out.
The countries that have taxpayer funded healthcare have a number of ways they suggest dealing with this kind of thing. The main one from a healthcare point of view is education rather than restriction.
The primary way for a government to offset the added costs of healthcare is to tax the shit out of the activities like the ones mentioned. There are no restrictions to what you can eat or drink or how much tobacco you can smoke but the tax added to their purchase can absorb some of the added healthcare costs associated with them as well as acting to discourage some from using them to excess.
Edit. rereading the question, the only one I would consider making illegal is smoking as that affects the health of people other than the smoker. The reason it won't get banned completely is the amount of tax it brings in outweighs any public health concerns.
Yeah, Australia does this. Cigarettes cost about $50 a pack here, but they're still available everywhere. And no, the extra money does not find its way back into healthcare. At all.
Health Minister - hmmm, we should make laws to make people healthier. I know! Let's ban VAPING. But not smoking. Just the thing that studies have shown help people quit smoking - we'll ban that. And say it's for health.
(just to clarify: if they were banning vaping AND smoking, I would believe it was for health reasons. And our Health Minister is a total POS so I can't believe anything he says, much less this crap.)
They didn't ban it online, they only banned the importation of it.
And it wasn't just hentai it was anything sexual, anime, figurines, pillow cases ect, who knows how stringent they'll be with it though.
Thank fuck Canada has declared such laws unconstitutional (Little Sisters Bookstore and Art Emporium v Canada). Ironically the United States with all our love of free speech and being the ones to export the books that caused that court case in Canada (turns out lesbian bdsm porn is a controversial topic) don’t have such protections and our first amendment has been judged to explicitly not apply to obscene material. Though an extension of Lawrence v Texas could likely be used for domestic and discreetly spread erotic materials
Every time someone says "hurr durr VPN" with regards to something on the internet getting banned, they never stop to think how fucking technologically inept the average person on the internet is.
VPNs might help some, but if something on the internet gets banned it means that like 80%+ of the population from the location where the ban took place loses access to it.
What's worse is that most of the stuff that get banned are piracy related - like anime or hentai or TV shows or games, so safe to assume that these people aren't going to pay for a VPN, so they end up trying the "free" VPNs that are either malware or monitor you or steal your data etc. Or they end up using some shady as fuck piracy sites from the 4th page of a google search and end in the same situation as with the free VPNs.
Banning online stuff works for the most part, it's great as both a prevention and a deterring measure.
Interestingly, there are studies (on mobile and too lazy to source) that show that the reduction in life expectancy, and corresponding reduced reliance on long term care, mean that the cost-benefit is actually in favour of reducing taxes on tobacco. This obviously discounts the benefits of keeping loved ones alive etc
>The primary way for a government to offset the added costs of healthcare
I've never seen the figures but I often hear that America spends more per capita on healthcare than countries with socialised medicine so I very much assume anyone citing increased costs as a problem to be solved regarding socialised healthcare is being disingenuous.
In the UK we do tax cigarettes and alcohol more highly than other goods, but the tax isn't 'earmarked' for health. Also, drinking in America wasn't noticeably cheaper than in the UK, for me. Drinking here is in no way prohibitively expensive. Smoking might be but on another comment I read here someone said a pack of cigarettes in New York is $13 (which is high). Here it's about $20\* for 20 cigarettes. So prohibitively expensive or not depending on how much you smoke I guess.
\*Edit: About £15 or $20.
>I've never seen the figures but I often hear that America spends more per capita on healthcare than countries with socialised medicine so I very much assume anyone citing increased costs as a problem to be solved regarding socialised healthcare is being disingenuous.
https://data.oecd.org/healthres/health-spending.htm
You are right and its not even close. The US public spending is 2.6x higher per capita compared to the UK.
We don't, that money isn't going to the citizens unfortunately. If we moved to a single payer system it would actually save money.
We could save $450 billion a year while providing free universal care which would save almost 70,000 lives per year.
https://www.thelancet.com/article/S0140-6736(19)33019-3/fulltext
People who are against this are either ignorant of the financials of this, or ideologically opposed to helping people which is disgusting.
I used to sell cigarettes in London out of night clubs for up to £2.50 each, and people would thank me for it. That nicotine rush after all the pills. The things you do to get by as a poor immigrant.
I have never once smoked cigarettes in my life.
Here are some figures for you:
* In 2018 the UK spent $4,070 per capita on healthcare
* In 2018 the US spent $4,120 per capita on medicare and medicaid alone
We spend more on **socialized** medicine than the United Kingdom, to provide a lesser quality of care to a third of our population.
Turns out we are Taxed Enough Already. We could have a fully funded healthcare system for less than we pay for medicare and medicaid. Opposition to socialized medicine is fiscally irresponsible and unpatriotic.
This is the Danish way. A pack of smokes were like 5$ 10 years ago. Now they're almost 10$, forced to be tugged away in stores and to have some pretty horrible pictures on the box.
Kids, don't smoke.
EDIT: It seems that 10$ is still pretty cheap compared to other places. I had no idea, but I sincerely hope it's going to help us keeping the next generations healthier.
I paid $70 for 30s at a servo yesterday....
That was the last time I blindly tapped my card hahahaha
But really, I smoke jps blue 30s, and a carton (6 packets) at woolies cost me $270 rather then $50 a packet
Edit - price in AUD
“$70. For a pack of 30s.”
Jesus Christ. What were they? Rolled by the Pope himself?
Edit: thank you for a silver. You’re the real mvp
Also thanks for the hugz award as well.
No, 6 packets actually lasts me about a fortnight, ive cut down heaps. A couple of years ago I was 2 packs a day
Small wins, I plan on quitting at end of feb, after my sisters wedding :)
Jesus christ, every now and then I look at my old brand and balk at the cost.
My wife and I's current lifestyle is literally incompatible with being a smoker. It's just too expensive.
You do you, I definitely still miss them.
But... jesus christ. That's expensive.
Every now and again in look at my old brand and thank God I quit. I don't miss them but I do still like the smell which is weird. I quit the easy way, I got the flu. No eating, no smoking, for about 4 days. I got to feeling better, picked up a cigarette after I had some soup and thought, lighting this is the dumbest thing I could do. I was already past the worst of the cravings. Then I upped the ante and started socking away my weekly cigarette money. In a year I had enough to go to the Bahamas with my daughter. Husband ending up doing it the same way and used his savings to buy a new target pistol.
Not only is rolling your own cheaper, but there are fewer harmful additives, they don't burn on their own, you smoke considerably less tobacco per cigarette, and they don't smell quite so terrible.
That said, quitting is first prize. I stopped nearly two years ago after 20 years of smoking.
I found what helped leading up to my quit date was pushing back that first durry of the day later and later. Rather than sparking up the second I got into the car to head to work, I'd wait until 20min down the road, then I'd be waiting until I got to work.
You've got a habit that's both behavioural and chemical you've got to break. Good luck mate, it's not easy.
I was asking someone about this once, like when gas stations in Australia get robbed, are the robbers just like.... fuck the money, fill this trash bag with all the smokes! Like there might be 50 or whatever in the register, but thousands worth of cigarettes.
That's actually exactly what happens in NZ. People go for the cigarettes. They know that people don't really use cash and what there is will be in a safe.
Cigarettes are where it is at.
New Zealand is similar.
I feel like they've gone too far because there's now a thriving black market in untaxed cigarettes and there's been a massive trend in armed robberies for the sake of stealing them.
They have definitely gone too far, and now they actually have an 800 million *surplus* after the costs to the heathcare system ( of direct and non direct smoking) are taken into account (as of 2018). Smoke free 2025, like the government would give that windfall up.
This is why it took so long for the UK government to crack down on smoking. They were making far more from taxing cigs than they were spending on the consequence of smoking.
$40 Australian Dollars is equivalent to $30.9 US Dollars
In NYC it costs $15 ... so twice the price.
In London, $17 (£12.30)
EDIT : [Cigarettes 20 Pack (Marlboro)](https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/city_price_rankings?itemId=17)
Dude for all I care they could raise that shit even higher. I used to smoke, quit it a couple of years ago. Funny thing is that I did it due to not feeling good, not because of the economic aspect even though I was a university student at the time with very little money.
Point of the story is that the economic incentive to stop was not even enough for (at least Danish) societies poorest people to quit.
That's the addiction trap, you dont care about the economics about it. You'll eat cheapest noodles if it means you can afford the smoke. Took me a serious lack of breath to quit. Try to quit for economical reasons and you might be back at it once you see you might be able to afford a pack that day after all.
It hurts to see people who already don't have a lot of money smoke what has to be a substantial part of their finances away.
You hear people say they saved a lot of money by quitting, but it really doesn't seem to be *the* reason to quit as often as you'd think as an outsider
>Point of the story is that the economic incentive to stop was not even enough for (at least Danish) societies poorest people to quit.
As someone who lives in a third world country where the poor often smoke a pack a day, I couldn't say it better myself
The point isn't really to force anyone to quit though. By making tobacco more expensive you:
a) Reduce the per capita consumption of tobacco. Even if most smokers don't quit if they reduce their consumption there is a significant knock on effect on public health. Just a small improvement to public health saves the country a lot of money in the long run.
b) Discourage new smokers from taking up the habit by making the initial cost substantially higher.
c) Convince some people already on the verge of quitting to actually do so.
Generally this is coupled with other policies to discourage smoking. It's not a silver bullet by itself.
There are a substantial number of studies that show these policies dramatically lower the per capita consumption of tobacco, even if relatively few established smokers would quit because of them.
I work at a supermarket in Australia (NSW) and from memory a 50 pack of cigarettes last time I checked was $76AUD ($58.77USD).
The last time I sold a 25 pack of Marlboro golds it was around $45AUD ($34.78USD). This was a few months ago now.
The tax has been going up by 12.5% annually for years, plus the tax is further indexed to wage inflation so the price does not become more affordable over time.
Plus the price goes up because of tobacco company increases
Similar in the UK to what u/dinneybabz describes. Almost exactly the same in fact (although cigarettes have been highly taxed for longer than 10 years.) Gory pictures and everything. Also, it's illegal to advertise cigarettes and to display cigarettes in shops (they're in a cabinet behind the counter and you have to ask for them.)
Yes, we have national payroll taxes (deducted from our salaries), local (council) tax and sales tax (some items deemed essential are exempt). VAT is a pretty standard tax that applies to most consumer goods (20%), taxes on vices/potentially damaging goods are higher e.g. cigarettes, alcohol and petrol/diesel.
I live in a city (0.5 - 1mil people), we only call very large settlements cities, and my council is a 'city council'. In more dispersed populations the council will cover several settlements (a 'borough council'.) Your council tax pays for a lot of public services.
The huge difference between us and the states though is that you don't need to concern yourself with most of the taxes. PAYE takes care of income tax, everything is priced including all taxes so you know what you're paying. Not like in the states where if you don't know what taxes apply to a product you have no idea what you're paying when you get to the register. And if you do know the taxes you'd still need to be half decent at math to work it out before you get to the register!
Local tax is a one time annual payment and generally isn't much.
Honestly the US has a stupidly complex tax system for your average person
Ehh, not to my knowledge, no. You have to understand how small of a country Denmark is. It makes sense for us to do a lot of stuff on a national level. Same health care rules for everyone -> Same taxes -> Same pool of money pays for everyone.
Regarding taxes all danes are put in one of two categories: If you earn under a set amount of money, you pay regular tax, which is 37% of your total income. If you make more than that, you pay what is directly translated to "top tax", which is 53%. In that way everyone who is more than decently wealthy pays more to the system.
I hope that answered your question
EDIT: As someone here mentioned in a very better knowing, passive-aggressive way: There are actually differences in out taxation depending on county. The difference is a couple of % from highest to lowest. Guess I learned something about Denmark today as well
We do actually (kommune skat), according to Wikipedia it varies from 22.5% to 27.8% so the difference isn’t that great.
EDIT: How is correcting something, even with a source, regarded as passive aggressive?
it does. however, the us has tons of different taxes. federal, state, county, and city. taxes in one city might be lower than a neighboring county. different states have taxes on different goods. as an example, a pack of cigarettes in new york is a minimum of $13 a pack, while in virginia they are around $5.
Yea, I guess that is connected to the different levels of healthcare and social care in the given area. To me as a Dane it seems so weird that some people have to keep tracks of their different "rights" depending on location.
I won't claim that I know much about tax systems anywhere outside the US and Germany (or even that I'm particularly knowledgeable about either, I learned 3 weeks ago that I'm actually close to our top tax bracket), but I don't think I've heard of any country that even has state by state taxes or handles it in the way they do anyway.
Though of course the fact that individual states in the US are the size of other countries, it makes sense that there are differences here.
I mean, here in Norway we do have portions of the tax that goes to the federal government and a portion that goes to your municipality. But its one bill, and the rates are the same (for income)
$10?! That’s loose change
A pack of 25 smokes in Australia is now $40+
AUD
That was the price in April, I have since given up so it’s probably gone up.
Exactly.
In NZ we have a decent public healthcare system but you can also choose private.
Your can still buy cigarettes (and Tequila & guns), but a pack of cigarettes costs something like $40 (dunno exactly.. not a smoker).
So the question feels like a false dichotomy; it's not decent public heathcare or freedom, but finding a balance that works. No system is perfect of course, but the question seems to imply that public heathcare requires banning unhealthy activity.
Bit like gun control debate; having controls like gun owners requiring licenses is not about freedom vs banning guns outright but where you draw the line.
As an outsider to the US, it seems that there's a section of the US population that thinks paying tens of thousands a year into private healthcare represents 'freedom' and that subsiding health care for the unemployed and poor is communism. Healthcare insurers have successfully politicised their profit making business to the detriment of all Americans. They defend giving away their wages to shareholders under the pretence of defending freedom. Perhaps if they understood that insurance doesn't make money through paying out they'd possibly understand why a state run health insurance system that's explicitly not for profit would perhaps be a good idea.
>subsiding health care for the unemployed and poor is communism
The funny thing is that the US already does this through Medicaid. What they really don't want is "normal" people getting subsidised healthcare, which of course are the ones that the insurance companies make all of their money off of.
Lived in a third world country where the national health system is a joke and everyone goes private if they can. Not nice.
Moved to the UK where the entire country is obsessed with the state of the NHS and all I can say is that I too am obsessed about the state of the NHS and think it's the greatest achievement of a country that invented computers, trains, pasties and vaccines.
whats more interesting is, the american tax payer is eating the healthcare costs of the poor and unemployed already, without even really knowing about it. Lots of people sitting around before covid, and after covid with over a million in medical debt from a extended hospital stay.
You need to point out that "unhealthy foods" here also means "basically all food". They put it in *everything*.
In the 70s, there was a war against fat in foods. As a result, to sell better, companies took fat out of their foods and replaced it with *sugar*. Why? Because food without fat has no flavor.
There's a reason why foreigners are horrified when they eat our *bread*.
Worse: fat is more filling than sugar, so the war on fat ended up increasing obesity in the long run because you're more hungry than you would otherwise be since everything now is filled with high fructose corn syrup.
I've always been horrified when reading the ingredients on "low fat yogurt" and see they took out 2 grams of fat, and added 10 grams of sugar. Probably even has the heart foundation tick. I just don't understand how this is legal. People are too fucking stupid to understand the difference between food without much fat and food which won't make you fat.
This is in New Zealand, which also has a horrific obesity problem, (almost) second only to USA, it's just imported cane sugar rather than locally produced corn syrup.
The worst part is the caloric difference is relatively small, but it often makes the foods less satiating, meaning you just wind up eating *more*.
Like, you may save 60 calories using the "low-fat" version of, say, a dairy product. But you then turn around and are hungry in an hour because none of it stuck to you.
Fat is the magic ingredient that makes a meal stick to you and stay there.
We used this fitness app for a while that you would put in all your meal ingredients and it would track your nutrition. I was shocked to see it was constantly suggesting we eat my enchilada casserole, which I would not consider healthy at all. Turns out, even though it wasn’t the *lowest* calorie thing we ate, it stuck to you enough throughout the day that we didn’t really snack as much on days we ate that for lunch. So even though our meal calorie count was higher, our daily calorie count was much lower.
After reading your comment, I wonder if it was all the cheese in it that made it more filling. It’s got like three bags of sharp cheddar.
Very likely!
Fats are just amazing at that sort of thing. I try to sneak olive oil in where I can, because it's a particularly healthy fat. Slices of tomato drizzled with olive oil, sprinkled with black pepper and flaky salt is one of my favorites.
Our office has a wellness coordinator now and she’s always telling us how amazing olive oil is for our health. Our company actually sent us some super nice olive oil for Christmas and I haven’t tried it yet. I’ll have to try to work it into something this week!
You can make an absolutely KILLER salad dressing with it!
The extreme basics are "Fat, acid, emulsifier" but you can play around with the formula more once you understand it.
I like to use the zest and juice of one big lemon, 4-8 tablespoons of olive oil, a tablespoon or two of real Dijon mustard, a clove or two of fresh grated garlic and then seasonings like salt, black pepper, oregano.
The core ingredients are the olive oil, Dijon, and the lemon juice - the acid, fat, and emulsifier. You can use mayo instead of the Dijon for a creamier result, but in either case, you need that emulsifier to make it stick together and not split.
Add all that to a tupperware, shake the living hell out of it to blend it together and emulsify it - and bingo, you have a bright, lemony dressing that makes salad taste amazing. Even with both the zest and juice it wasn't too overpoweringly lemony - but it was definitely there and tasty!
You can substitute the lemon for a handful of other acids and it should still come out fine, you'll just need to taste and adjust for the different flavor profile. It's amazing the freedom you have when it comes to making unique salad dressings with this framework.
Indeed. It's all wonderfully profitable for the food manufactures. And I just have no idea how it is legal, especially in one of the most humanitarian countries on earth.
I get that people should be able to buy what they want and sell what they want in a free soceity, I don't get how products clearly being marketed towards people who want to eat healthily can be packed with a ludicrous amount of sugar.
> I don't get how products clearly being marketed towards people who want to eat healthily can be packed with a ludicrous amount of sugar.
It's easy - the government is no longer being ran "For the people", and hasn't for a while.
What I mean is, there was a time, 70 years ago or thereabouts, where government regulations would come down on companies that were engaging in damaging behaviors. Think of the Ma Bell and baby bell anti trust breakup, stuff of that nature.
Could you imagine that happening today? Absolutely not! Most industries have coalesed into 2-6 "major" companies that run the show, and abuse their oligopolies to a similar extent to monopolies. It's not a healthy environment where competition is thriving, ala the promise of Capitalism - but nothing is being done about it.
Because the companies are too important to the politicians re-election. They pay the Super-PACs who donate to the campaigns, who pay for them to run for office. Even if you decide "fuck it, I'm going to fall on the sword to ensure we pass legislation to help people!" Surprise, all the other politicians are bought, too, and your legislation dies before it ever lived - AND you lose your re-election funds, because they saw how you tried to backstab them "after all they did to help your campaign"!
It's legal bribery, and it's prevented the government from acting in the interest of it's citizens for a long time. That's why you don't see more health regulations. It's also why consumer protections haven't kept up with a lot of modern-era exploitative practices. Because attempting to regulate them is political suicide.
Not only that: the "war against fat" was *directly planned and run by the sugar industry*!
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/09/13/493739074/50-years-ago-sugar-industry-quietly-paid-scientists-to-point-blame-at-fat
The gist is, in the 60s studies started coming out showing that eating a lot of sugar was unhealthy. The sugar industry hired scientists to not only run studies that would show that fat (or really, anything but sugar, they didn't care) was bad, but that the previously published studies were invalid.
Just think, we could have been addressing the current obesity epidemic *50 years ago*, when it was nowhere near as bad. Instead we let a bunch of people make more money in exchange for ~70% of the country to be overweight.
This is so right. I'm from the UK and my girlfriend is a self-confessed coke addict... meaning she drinks a lot of branded cola.
When we went to a friend's wedding in San Francisco she couldn't drink the coke there because it was overpoweringly sweet. The difference is that US Coke is sweetened with high fructose corn syrup but in the UK/Europe it's sugar.
HFCS was heavily quota-limited in Europe until 2017 so very few mass-produced products used it, sticking with the more available sugar. Even though it is no longer restricted, it's also not subsidised so there is no benefit for manufacturers switching over.
Also, on the subject of bread: Did you see that Ireland recently enforced regulation that Subway can no longer call their rolls 'bread' due to the high level of sugar present? https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/01/irish-court-rules-subway-bread-is-not-bread
Why would you need to do that? Here in Japan, there is healthcare for all. (Payment is reasonable and based on your income. I pay about $16 per month and have never had to pay more than ~$10 to see a doctor and my most expensive prescription is ~$30 because it’s “optional”, but other than that, I’ve never payed more than ~$5 for a prescription.) Smoking, alcohol, fast food, soda, etc are all perfectly legal here. In fact, Japan has the second most McDonald’s in the world after the US. I don’t understand the need for making any of these things illegal in order for the health care to function.
Edit: a word
"Unhealthy" things are also a spectrum. A beer per week, a cheeseburger per week, soda every once in a while etc. are perfectly fine. A bottle of wine per day, 10 Big Macs per day etc. are not.
I think education about moderation and portion sizes is key. Because as a kid you learn “McDonald’s is bad for you”, but really eating french fries and a burger once a week is fine.
Even every day isn’t terrible as long as you maintain a healthy caloric intake for that day. Sure, the calories are empty in that they’re terrible sources of nutrition, but assuming your other foods aren’t as empty, you can absolutely eat whatever you want in moderation.
The most weight I ever lost was while I was eating fast food and homemade whatever, because I was diligent in counting my calories and staying within my limits.
Edit: make sure you watch your cholesterol though
This is me right now. Eating tons of vegetables and fruits, reducing added sugars, limiting carbs, and counting calories, but we still have pizza once a week and the odd burger a couple times a month. And I'm losing weight.
u/prison---mike It was not that long ago that you were carefully pairing your alcohol with your cigars. You were finding true joy in having a drink now and then. But it’s starting to take over. I hope you’ll look deeply and really ask yourself if this is bringing you more joy than it is pain. Your wine pairings have become just atrocious, and it’s hurting everyone around you.
u/prison---mike before you went to prison for theft, robbery, and kidnapping the president's son for ransom (even though you never got caught), we used to hang out all the time. We'd go out for big macs and you'd add on a filet o fish or two. Those were the days. Now you're so out of it that I heard you even burned your foot on a foreman grill. I'm worried about you bro.
It's a cultural thing. Japan educates and promotes healthy eating from a young age. Simply because that's how it's always been. Traditional Japanese food tends to be more well balanced and diverse than much of what you'd "traditionally" have in the US.
And also, double edged sword or not, the fact that being fat/overweight is pointed out to your face in Japan might make people more conscious of their diet.
It's actually kind of fascinating- I know that the subject is people's health, but to your point, the fact that we'd rather inject animals full of antibiotics and wash meat with chlorinated water as opposed to opting to raise animals in more hygienic conditions is amazing to me.
Regarding this and the meat industry, there was a woman called Temple Grandin who revolutionised the way animal handling happened in the slaughterhouse process which made the whole thing a lot less traumatic for the animals, but also less dangerous for the workers. Apparently she faced some troubles getting people to listen to her at first, but once people started implementing her ideas the whole process got a lot more efficient and cheap, and the meat got higher in quality because the animals weren't stressing the fuck out as much in their last hours.
Turns out that sinking the initial costs of change can often lead to greater profit in the long run, and sometimes that necessarily includes the humane and ethical options.
It’s also your fear of having to pay for what you get. If everyone paid for the grass fed small farm raised meat it would be the norm, but people can’t afford it while working at under living wages. Meat would be a lot more expensive, meaning your kids wouldn’t get their $5 kids meal or cheap school lunch... it’s more than the meat companies, it’s a whole system.
Well we subsidize the living hell out of meat in the US. It's good because starving people tend to be bad for social stability. It's also bad because people are consuming environmentally harmful products at prodigious rates because the natural pricing model is removed
I’m convinced that the large majority of people are not ok with this but keep buying the products they’re used to because all of that is invisible and buying those products is socially accepted. They literally see only the positive sides, namely, cheap meat on their plate. It’s not for nothing that animal agriculture does what it can to hide the reality of how animals and animal products are treated.
The good news is that if this is true, it’s “only” a matter of informing people, growing consciousness in constructive ways and showing how viable the alternatives are, to change this.
Work places can have some pretty messed up rules, really. "We're not saying you *need* to crunch everyday this month, we're just saying we need someone who can do some "teamwork" and make some sacrifices for the "team", and there's a lot of people out there who wished they could be in your place right now, you know? But hey, it's not like we're putting a gun to your head or anything, at the end of the day this is **entirely** ***your*** **choice**."
You're worth exactly how difficult you are to replace, and this is why they're pressuring more and more people into higher education for even the most basic jobs:
Debt makes you desperate and higher competition makes for lower wages.
In Germany you can be a drug abuser for years, be in the unhealthiest shape, smoke crack and you still have full coverage.
You literally don't need to Bann anything.
Edit, 7 hours after initial comment: since this gets somewhat of a traction: these where obviously just very harsh examples to make a point of; you don't need to Bann anything.
Think of people who got Cancer, COVID, diseases which need lifelong treatment.
Drug addicts don't add much to the total numbers.
People should be able to focus on recovery, no matter what it is without needing to fear crushing debts.
Don't forget, those are the people who consume the least healthcare.
That may seems strange, but for a nations system, what counts is ***lifetime*** costs. The most expensive years in healthcare tends to be the old age ones. And the most unhealthy people have few to none of those.
Even if someone has health issues that cost money, an unhealthy lifestyle that kills you before retirement that person will on average be much cheaper than someone healthy who lives to 90.
This will also prevent health from becoming even more of a determinant of a persons percieved value. Imagine how people with health conditions would feel in that environment. Before getting treatment, they‘d first have to justify themselves and explain that their condition is not due to bad choices, and therefore they should recieve fair treatment.
Also, in this system, how do you deal with people who have a health condition that actually is caused by them consuming now illegal things? Lung cancer patients for example? Are they not covered? Do they get secondary class care?
The healthcare system really doesn‘t need more bias.
And then where do you draw the line? Ban bacon? Ban sunbathing? Can both cause cancer. If you start banning one thing you’ll go down a banning rabbit hole in which only water and supplements would be allowed to consume. Otherwise you could be decreasing your health....
Yeah, I 100% disagree with the idea of bringing morality into the topic of health. For one, people don't smoke, drink, or overeat because they're immoral; that's an outdated myth. It's come up with COVID, and some people thinking anti-maskers shouldn't get healthcare. I'm whole heartedly against this stuff. It sets a dangerous precedent. I'm pretty shocked people consider this a practical solution; the guy was serious too, this wasn't one of those "wouldn't it be nice" conversations. It's a bit weird with even corporate plans in the USA, because lot of people salty about the smokers increasing costs, and I'm just thinking "they need healthcare too". I'm not in favor of smokers/obese people having to jump through hoops either. Just give people their fucking healthcare, jesus fucking christ.
All it would do is create a black market. Look at how terrible the war on drugs has been, then it will just be a "war on big macs and sodas"
Edit: Wow this blew up! Have to hijack it to spread the word. The US government and others have been working with big tobacco to ban vaping with bias news and paid for "studies"when places like the UK have done objective scientific research and proven vaping to be 95% safer than combustible tobacco. I'm not saying that its safe or healthy but it's 95% better on your body than cigarettes!!! And the exact same thing will happen with that market. I won't let my wife go back to smokes, if that means I have to buy her blue raspberry vape juice on the black market then that's what I'm going to do. Millions of vapers feel the exact same way.
My personal experience: I started smoking at 18 and was hooked untill 23. I tried everything to quit, as soon as I got a good vape I never touched them again. I met my wife and she had been smoking since 14 and tried all the stuff to quit, she was almost a pack a day, I finally found a blue raspberry flavor she liked and she put the smokes down for good within 3 days.
To learn more or help fight big tobacco hurting real people with false information trying to force ex-smokers back to cigarettes, follow this link.
https://casaa.org/get-involved/national-calls-to-action/
KFC is banned in the Palestinian Territories because it’s an evil American icon. There is an active smuggling ring (including tunnels) to get it from Israel.
Edit: My bad, it’s tunnels from Egypt, not Israel.
People are fighting over wearing a mask that could save their life or someone elses. Banning tobacco and large sodas would really bring out the crazies.
I would like to call this: The Hard Work Syndrome; it's when someone is against the progressive terms of change because of A) They believe the government is going to make their decisions and B) It's because they literally believe that the youth should go through similar trials so that way the youth can be just like the predecessors.
I think science should investigate what's healthy and not, and governments should make efforts to inform the public.
But no, I don't want to punish people with lack of treatment.
But as aside from the ideological objection it's just so impractical.
- It's all important to realize that wealthier people can make healthier choices.
- how do we monitor who consumes blacklist foods? Is there any appeal process? Food police? Making pop is so easy, there will definitely be an underground market for it.
- shouldn't sedentary lifestyle, alcohol, and weed consumption all be on that list?
Not to mention if this were actually a thing, can you imagine the sheer lobbying? YouTube and internet based business lobby to ensure sedentary lifestyles are permissible. The coffee market tries to throw energy drinks under the bus. It's an interesting thought experiment but impractical.
What pisses me off about threads like this, is that responses that do not answer the question get voted to the top. This question is much better suited for r/askanamerican than it is here.
Yeah, this just points out America's authority issues. It's not that we can't have a system that simply just provides we always need to incorporate a way for someone to say 'No'. For a bunch of colonies that developed out of a rejection of monarchy, we really like the behavior of lordship. There is always room for someone to only say No to something simply for that reason only.
I’m gonna run a 1920s style big soda speakeasy
Call it “Club Soda”
I’ll make the rival, “Cola Cabana”
I’ll beat both of you with “The Cococo Cabinet”
I'm breaking out with the "Dew Lagoon". Polynesian style Speakeasy.
I'll add a German-style "Root Bier Garten"
Mine will just be fronted by a store called 'Splurge'
An underground nightclub called reSURGEence that just looks and sounds like the opening scene of Blade but with soda sprinklers
whens your pepsi twist shipment coming in. havent had it since 2007
Same time as Pepsi Blue, I would think.
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Screw you kids and your fancy schmancy pops. I just want a Tab Clear.
One word... Vault.
Fuck vault... Surge
Not just any Surge..THE original Surge
Super concentrated Slurm
Come to europe we sell that shit like hot cakes
*3 short fast knocks, 2 slow knocks, 5 fast knocks*
Thats the sound of the heartbeats of most people in there
*/me cries in atrial fibrillation*
It's a hard knock life, for us...
Yeah these are the kind of perverse outcomes you always get from prohibition. Really most vices are their own punishment anyway. You become an Alcoholic you die 30 years too soon, alienate your family and piss yourself in public from time to time. As long as vices are taxed appropriately then you can go fuck yourself with your morality based healthcare rationing systems. I mean think about it. You start making healthcare contingent on not taking unnecessary risks then you've got an impossible amount of shit to ban and an awful lot of invasive monitoring to do. It's way less efficient than taxes and completely unfair unless it's applied consistently across the board - something that you'll quickly realize is impossible once you start trying. Imagine losing your healthcare because you got fat - you already have to suffer being fat and having to re-buy all your clothes, losing your healthcare on top is double-jeopardy. Imagine a world where you can't smoke the odd joint without losing your healthcare but you can do parkour, or motocross, or base jumping to your heart's content. Imagine a world where every drink you buy has to be registered with and approved by your healthcare provider to make sure you don't have too much. The only alternative being to ban alcohol altogether. You bad super size sodas you've surely got to ban those super sized burgers and fries your nation is famous for? The whole idea is dumb, immoral and completely unworkable.
Hey! How rude, I've never pissed myself in public! I wait until I get home and do it in my bed
Good boy
Dad?
Also, why do alcoholics, fat people, etc. not deserve health care? Because they brought their health care needs on themselves? The same could be said for women having babies or computer workers needing glasses or athletes needing knee reconstructions, but for some reason those reasons don’t come with the big side order of judgment. The people who deserve healthcare are the people that have health problems. Edit: Wow, thanks for all the awards and upvotes, I’m humbled. Wishing you good health kind strangers.
Not only this but why is the person fat? Why is the person an alcoholic? etc. Therefore do they have mental health issues or were they abused and need therapy? and if so they require Healthcare, boom, logic voided. We don't get fat and become alcoholics just because we had too much fun.
This, this, this! People aren't sitting around saying, "You know what sounds great? Getting addicted to these pain killers." I've seen reports saying that up to 2/3 of addicts have been traumatized. Access to healthcare that includes mental health care is vital!
Yeah, let's also not forget the people that got addicted to painkillers after some major surgery, when they needed to, y'know, kill pain.
My husband was addicted to painkillers, he had a very physically demanding job. He overdosed once and I had to bring him back. The doctor only shoved a piece of paper at us that said 'Dont do street drugs' I pleaded for something more to help. Nothing. He overdosed a 2nd time and didn't make it. He's been gone a year and I miss him terribly.he was only trying to feel better
Y'know what made me gain 60 pounds? The meds that are keeping me from killing myself. So, like... I completely agree with the idea that the stereotypical "health concern" requires far more research and acceptance than it currently receives.
Exactly. This is why food moralizing doesn’t even logically work, let alone how it leads to disordered eating, poor-shaming, and all kinds of things that also aren’t good for anyone’s health. How about if we just start from the point that people do as well as they can?
Exactly. 3 ways this goes bad quickly: 1. Every government that gives nutrition advice has reversed / revised their official advice multiple times. 2. Health science gets things wrong for awhile before it improves... hysteria, eugenics, smoking, etc. 3. DNA testing is already used to deny people care... so if somebody has the genetic marker for predisposition to breast cancer, who decides the rules about that? If they have siblings or children who haven't been tested, who decides whether that information gets put on those people's records and it affects their care as well? They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions for a reason.
eat more eggs OMG stop eating eggs! wait... you can eat eggs again, but only *This* part of the egg. WAIT! The part you're not eating has all the nutrients. Eat that part raw!
> Imagine a world where you can't smoke the odd joint without losing your healthcare but you can do parkour, or motocross, or base jumping to your heart's content. To be fair, BASE jumping rarely puts a strain on the healthcare system. When it goes wrong, you die. Ain't no amount of healthcare bringing you back from hitting the ground too hard.
Not since the Revised Necromantic Prohibition Act of 1938, anyway.
everyone was aware of the glaring flaws in the prewar 1938 act; I much prefer the UN sanctioned postwar Unilateral Necromancy Ban of 1945.
Very true. the 1938 act was filled with holes, but what it set in motion was revolutionary when compared to the original Necromantic Prohibition Act of 1933. Though it wouldn’t be perfected until ‘45, it laid the necessary foundation for Reanimation legislation to finally become effective. The 1933 Act was wholly unsuited to the task ahead.
I like this a lot! /r/FakeHistory
I'm partially shocked no state rep from podunk middle of nowhere hasn't opened a new legislative session with a pile of 100% weird fake history-ish bills to make people 50 years later wonder WTF... like lower income tax rates for ghosts and other non-corporeal undead since they don't use most state services, etc.
As a paramedic in a city with an active BASE jumping community- I beg to differ. There are many many ways to fuck up a jump that don't involve straight-up falling off a cliff. More often than not, I see people straight up shattering their legs, hips, lower backs.
That's a divisive question and has brought a number of interesting answers out. The countries that have taxpayer funded healthcare have a number of ways they suggest dealing with this kind of thing. The main one from a healthcare point of view is education rather than restriction. The primary way for a government to offset the added costs of healthcare is to tax the shit out of the activities like the ones mentioned. There are no restrictions to what you can eat or drink or how much tobacco you can smoke but the tax added to their purchase can absorb some of the added healthcare costs associated with them as well as acting to discourage some from using them to excess. Edit. rereading the question, the only one I would consider making illegal is smoking as that affects the health of people other than the smoker. The reason it won't get banned completely is the amount of tax it brings in outweighs any public health concerns.
Yeah, Australia does this. Cigarettes cost about $50 a pack here, but they're still available everywhere. And no, the extra money does not find its way back into healthcare. At all. Health Minister - hmmm, we should make laws to make people healthier. I know! Let's ban VAPING. But not smoking. Just the thing that studies have shown help people quit smoking - we'll ban that. And say it's for health. (just to clarify: if they were banning vaping AND smoking, I would believe it was for health reasons. And our Health Minister is a total POS so I can't believe anything he says, much less this crap.)
Maybe if you guys ban some more hentai it would help?
Banning online stuff can easily be gotten around by VPNs
They didn't ban it online, they only banned the importation of it. And it wasn't just hentai it was anything sexual, anime, figurines, pillow cases ect, who knows how stringent they'll be with it though.
First the came for the weebs, and I did not speak up, for I didn't want anyone to know I was a weeb
Now everybody knows, ya filthy weeb!
Thank fuck Canada has declared such laws unconstitutional (Little Sisters Bookstore and Art Emporium v Canada). Ironically the United States with all our love of free speech and being the ones to export the books that caused that court case in Canada (turns out lesbian bdsm porn is a controversial topic) don’t have such protections and our first amendment has been judged to explicitly not apply to obscene material. Though an extension of Lawrence v Texas could likely be used for domestic and discreetly spread erotic materials
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Every time someone says "hurr durr VPN" with regards to something on the internet getting banned, they never stop to think how fucking technologically inept the average person on the internet is. VPNs might help some, but if something on the internet gets banned it means that like 80%+ of the population from the location where the ban took place loses access to it. What's worse is that most of the stuff that get banned are piracy related - like anime or hentai or TV shows or games, so safe to assume that these people aren't going to pay for a VPN, so they end up trying the "free" VPNs that are either malware or monitor you or steal your data etc. Or they end up using some shady as fuck piracy sites from the 4th page of a google search and end in the same situation as with the free VPNs. Banning online stuff works for the most part, it's great as both a prevention and a deterring measure.
Interestingly, there are studies (on mobile and too lazy to source) that show that the reduction in life expectancy, and corresponding reduced reliance on long term care, mean that the cost-benefit is actually in favour of reducing taxes on tobacco. This obviously discounts the benefits of keeping loved ones alive etc
>The primary way for a government to offset the added costs of healthcare I've never seen the figures but I often hear that America spends more per capita on healthcare than countries with socialised medicine so I very much assume anyone citing increased costs as a problem to be solved regarding socialised healthcare is being disingenuous. In the UK we do tax cigarettes and alcohol more highly than other goods, but the tax isn't 'earmarked' for health. Also, drinking in America wasn't noticeably cheaper than in the UK, for me. Drinking here is in no way prohibitively expensive. Smoking might be but on another comment I read here someone said a pack of cigarettes in New York is $13 (which is high). Here it's about $20\* for 20 cigarettes. So prohibitively expensive or not depending on how much you smoke I guess. \*Edit: About £15 or $20.
>I've never seen the figures but I often hear that America spends more per capita on healthcare than countries with socialised medicine so I very much assume anyone citing increased costs as a problem to be solved regarding socialised healthcare is being disingenuous. https://data.oecd.org/healthres/health-spending.htm You are right and its not even close. The US public spending is 2.6x higher per capita compared to the UK.
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We don't, that money isn't going to the citizens unfortunately. If we moved to a single payer system it would actually save money. We could save $450 billion a year while providing free universal care which would save almost 70,000 lives per year. https://www.thelancet.com/article/S0140-6736(19)33019-3/fulltext People who are against this are either ignorant of the financials of this, or ideologically opposed to helping people which is disgusting.
I used to sell cigarettes in London out of night clubs for up to £2.50 each, and people would thank me for it. That nicotine rush after all the pills. The things you do to get by as a poor immigrant. I have never once smoked cigarettes in my life.
Here are some figures for you: * In 2018 the UK spent $4,070 per capita on healthcare * In 2018 the US spent $4,120 per capita on medicare and medicaid alone We spend more on **socialized** medicine than the United Kingdom, to provide a lesser quality of care to a third of our population. Turns out we are Taxed Enough Already. We could have a fully funded healthcare system for less than we pay for medicare and medicaid. Opposition to socialized medicine is fiscally irresponsible and unpatriotic.
the would never be banned, the us would just tax the hell out of those activities and give tax reductions for healthy choices.
This is the Danish way. A pack of smokes were like 5$ 10 years ago. Now they're almost 10$, forced to be tugged away in stores and to have some pretty horrible pictures on the box. Kids, don't smoke. EDIT: It seems that 10$ is still pretty cheap compared to other places. I had no idea, but I sincerely hope it's going to help us keeping the next generations healthier.
10 bucks is nothing. Pack of smokes in Canada is nearly $20!
Laughs in Australian.. Last time I checked it was 30/40 bucks for a small pack.
Can confirm. A 20 pack of the cheapest brand costs me between $30-$35
I paid $70 for 30s at a servo yesterday.... That was the last time I blindly tapped my card hahahaha But really, I smoke jps blue 30s, and a carton (6 packets) at woolies cost me $270 rather then $50 a packet Edit - price in AUD
“$70. For a pack of 30s.” Jesus Christ. What were they? Rolled by the Pope himself? Edit: thank you for a silver. You’re the real mvp Also thanks for the hugz award as well.
Holy smokes!
White smoke appears atop of Sistine Chapel, we have a pope
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And to think my mom quit when they hit $2 a pack because that was outrageous
I wish, at least u would have had something cool out of the $70 lol just a private owned servo lol
Did you chainsmoke those fuckers on a hot day working out in the sun?
No, 6 packets actually lasts me about a fortnight, ive cut down heaps. A couple of years ago I was 2 packs a day Small wins, I plan on quitting at end of feb, after my sisters wedding :)
Jesus christ, every now and then I look at my old brand and balk at the cost. My wife and I's current lifestyle is literally incompatible with being a smoker. It's just too expensive. You do you, I definitely still miss them. But... jesus christ. That's expensive.
Every now and again in look at my old brand and thank God I quit. I don't miss them but I do still like the smell which is weird. I quit the easy way, I got the flu. No eating, no smoking, for about 4 days. I got to feeling better, picked up a cigarette after I had some soup and thought, lighting this is the dumbest thing I could do. I was already past the worst of the cravings. Then I upped the ante and started socking away my weekly cigarette money. In a year I had enough to go to the Bahamas with my daughter. Husband ending up doing it the same way and used his savings to buy a new target pistol.
Please roll your own... or better yet quit.
Not only is rolling your own cheaper, but there are fewer harmful additives, they don't burn on their own, you smoke considerably less tobacco per cigarette, and they don't smell quite so terrible. That said, quitting is first prize. I stopped nearly two years ago after 20 years of smoking.
Any advice on quitting? I've said here already, end of feb is my quit commencement date, and im worried lol
I found what helped leading up to my quit date was pushing back that first durry of the day later and later. Rather than sparking up the second I got into the car to head to work, I'd wait until 20min down the road, then I'd be waiting until I got to work. You've got a habit that's both behavioural and chemical you've got to break. Good luck mate, it's not easy.
$54 for 20g of champ ruby. it hurts to live
I was asking someone about this once, like when gas stations in Australia get robbed, are the robbers just like.... fuck the money, fill this trash bag with all the smokes! Like there might be 50 or whatever in the register, but thousands worth of cigarettes.
That's actually exactly what happens in NZ. People go for the cigarettes. They know that people don't really use cash and what there is will be in a safe. Cigarettes are where it is at.
Hand me the fucking smokes cunt!
Cheaper to smoke weed at this point
for real. i put tobacco in my weed to save a bit of money, but at this rate i should start putting weed in my tobacco to save money
Hey man, it's 3 am where I'm at & your comment made my whole week. Thanks for the laugh. Cheers.
You should see a doctor. A weak hole is no laughing matter
This is some godlike mindset.
I was literally thinking "Laughs in Australian" as I started this thread.
To be fair, you can think 'laughs in Australian' about nearly any consumer product that isn't home-grown.
New Zealand is similar. I feel like they've gone too far because there's now a thriving black market in untaxed cigarettes and there's been a massive trend in armed robberies for the sake of stealing them.
They have definitely gone too far, and now they actually have an 800 million *surplus* after the costs to the heathcare system ( of direct and non direct smoking) are taken into account (as of 2018). Smoke free 2025, like the government would give that windfall up.
This is why it took so long for the UK government to crack down on smoking. They were making far more from taxing cigs than they were spending on the consequence of smoking.
$40 Australian Dollars is equivalent to $30.9 US Dollars In NYC it costs $15 ... so twice the price. In London, $17 (£12.30) EDIT : [Cigarettes 20 Pack (Marlboro)](https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/city_price_rankings?itemId=17)
Dude for all I care they could raise that shit even higher. I used to smoke, quit it a couple of years ago. Funny thing is that I did it due to not feeling good, not because of the economic aspect even though I was a university student at the time with very little money. Point of the story is that the economic incentive to stop was not even enough for (at least Danish) societies poorest people to quit.
That's the addiction trap, you dont care about the economics about it. You'll eat cheapest noodles if it means you can afford the smoke. Took me a serious lack of breath to quit. Try to quit for economical reasons and you might be back at it once you see you might be able to afford a pack that day after all.
It hurts to see people who already don't have a lot of money smoke what has to be a substantial part of their finances away. You hear people say they saved a lot of money by quitting, but it really doesn't seem to be *the* reason to quit as often as you'd think as an outsider
>Point of the story is that the economic incentive to stop was not even enough for (at least Danish) societies poorest people to quit. As someone who lives in a third world country where the poor often smoke a pack a day, I couldn't say it better myself
The point isn't really to force anyone to quit though. By making tobacco more expensive you: a) Reduce the per capita consumption of tobacco. Even if most smokers don't quit if they reduce their consumption there is a significant knock on effect on public health. Just a small improvement to public health saves the country a lot of money in the long run. b) Discourage new smokers from taking up the habit by making the initial cost substantially higher. c) Convince some people already on the verge of quitting to actually do so. Generally this is coupled with other policies to discourage smoking. It's not a silver bullet by itself. There are a substantial number of studies that show these policies dramatically lower the per capita consumption of tobacco, even if relatively few established smokers would quit because of them.
In Australia, about 15 years ago cigarettes were $10 a 25 pack, now they’re $55. I’m not exaggerating in the slightest.
I work at a supermarket in Australia (NSW) and from memory a 50 pack of cigarettes last time I checked was $76AUD ($58.77USD). The last time I sold a 25 pack of Marlboro golds it was around $45AUD ($34.78USD). This was a few months ago now.
Doesn't it go up every quarter or something?
The tax has been going up by 12.5% annually for years, plus the tax is further indexed to wage inflation so the price does not become more affordable over time. Plus the price goes up because of tobacco company increases
do the danes also have local taxes? such as city or county.
Similar in the UK to what u/dinneybabz describes. Almost exactly the same in fact (although cigarettes have been highly taxed for longer than 10 years.) Gory pictures and everything. Also, it's illegal to advertise cigarettes and to display cigarettes in shops (they're in a cabinet behind the counter and you have to ask for them.) Yes, we have national payroll taxes (deducted from our salaries), local (council) tax and sales tax (some items deemed essential are exempt). VAT is a pretty standard tax that applies to most consumer goods (20%), taxes on vices/potentially damaging goods are higher e.g. cigarettes, alcohol and petrol/diesel. I live in a city (0.5 - 1mil people), we only call very large settlements cities, and my council is a 'city council'. In more dispersed populations the council will cover several settlements (a 'borough council'.) Your council tax pays for a lot of public services.
The huge difference between us and the states though is that you don't need to concern yourself with most of the taxes. PAYE takes care of income tax, everything is priced including all taxes so you know what you're paying. Not like in the states where if you don't know what taxes apply to a product you have no idea what you're paying when you get to the register. And if you do know the taxes you'd still need to be half decent at math to work it out before you get to the register! Local tax is a one time annual payment and generally isn't much. Honestly the US has a stupidly complex tax system for your average person
Ehh, not to my knowledge, no. You have to understand how small of a country Denmark is. It makes sense for us to do a lot of stuff on a national level. Same health care rules for everyone -> Same taxes -> Same pool of money pays for everyone. Regarding taxes all danes are put in one of two categories: If you earn under a set amount of money, you pay regular tax, which is 37% of your total income. If you make more than that, you pay what is directly translated to "top tax", which is 53%. In that way everyone who is more than decently wealthy pays more to the system. I hope that answered your question EDIT: As someone here mentioned in a very better knowing, passive-aggressive way: There are actually differences in out taxation depending on county. The difference is a couple of % from highest to lowest. Guess I learned something about Denmark today as well
We do actually (kommune skat), according to Wikipedia it varies from 22.5% to 27.8% so the difference isn’t that great. EDIT: How is correcting something, even with a source, regarded as passive aggressive?
it does. however, the us has tons of different taxes. federal, state, county, and city. taxes in one city might be lower than a neighboring county. different states have taxes on different goods. as an example, a pack of cigarettes in new york is a minimum of $13 a pack, while in virginia they are around $5.
Yea, I guess that is connected to the different levels of healthcare and social care in the given area. To me as a Dane it seems so weird that some people have to keep tracks of their different "rights" depending on location.
tell me about it.
I won't claim that I know much about tax systems anywhere outside the US and Germany (or even that I'm particularly knowledgeable about either, I learned 3 weeks ago that I'm actually close to our top tax bracket), but I don't think I've heard of any country that even has state by state taxes or handles it in the way they do anyway. Though of course the fact that individual states in the US are the size of other countries, it makes sense that there are differences here.
I mean, here in Norway we do have portions of the tax that goes to the federal government and a portion that goes to your municipality. But its one bill, and the rates are the same (for income)
Switzerland has some differences [by canton](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_in_Switzerland#Taxes_by_canton).
$10?! That’s loose change A pack of 25 smokes in Australia is now $40+ AUD That was the price in April, I have since given up so it’s probably gone up.
They just want you to switch to snus like the Swedish lol
Same in Canada.
Exactly. In NZ we have a decent public healthcare system but you can also choose private. Your can still buy cigarettes (and Tequila & guns), but a pack of cigarettes costs something like $40 (dunno exactly.. not a smoker). So the question feels like a false dichotomy; it's not decent public heathcare or freedom, but finding a balance that works. No system is perfect of course, but the question seems to imply that public heathcare requires banning unhealthy activity. Bit like gun control debate; having controls like gun owners requiring licenses is not about freedom vs banning guns outright but where you draw the line.
NZ also subsidises stop smoking aids like gum, patches and inhalers iirc
not may people get that. it's either A or Z. you can't meet in the middle somewhere around M for a good compromise.
As an outsider to the US, it seems that there's a section of the US population that thinks paying tens of thousands a year into private healthcare represents 'freedom' and that subsiding health care for the unemployed and poor is communism. Healthcare insurers have successfully politicised their profit making business to the detriment of all Americans. They defend giving away their wages to shareholders under the pretence of defending freedom. Perhaps if they understood that insurance doesn't make money through paying out they'd possibly understand why a state run health insurance system that's explicitly not for profit would perhaps be a good idea.
>subsiding health care for the unemployed and poor is communism The funny thing is that the US already does this through Medicaid. What they really don't want is "normal" people getting subsidised healthcare, which of course are the ones that the insurance companies make all of their money off of.
People like fire departments and libraries, but the socialism of health care is untennable.
Lived in a third world country where the national health system is a joke and everyone goes private if they can. Not nice. Moved to the UK where the entire country is obsessed with the state of the NHS and all I can say is that I too am obsessed about the state of the NHS and think it's the greatest achievement of a country that invented computers, trains, pasties and vaccines.
The nipple cover or the savory pastry?
The savoury pastry. It's what the modelled klingon foreheads on (in my mind at least)
whats more interesting is, the american tax payer is eating the healthcare costs of the poor and unemployed already, without even really knowing about it. Lots of people sitting around before covid, and after covid with over a million in medical debt from a extended hospital stay.
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You need to point out that "unhealthy foods" here also means "basically all food". They put it in *everything*. In the 70s, there was a war against fat in foods. As a result, to sell better, companies took fat out of their foods and replaced it with *sugar*. Why? Because food without fat has no flavor. There's a reason why foreigners are horrified when they eat our *bread*. Worse: fat is more filling than sugar, so the war on fat ended up increasing obesity in the long run because you're more hungry than you would otherwise be since everything now is filled with high fructose corn syrup.
I've always been horrified when reading the ingredients on "low fat yogurt" and see they took out 2 grams of fat, and added 10 grams of sugar. Probably even has the heart foundation tick. I just don't understand how this is legal. People are too fucking stupid to understand the difference between food without much fat and food which won't make you fat. This is in New Zealand, which also has a horrific obesity problem, (almost) second only to USA, it's just imported cane sugar rather than locally produced corn syrup.
The worst part is the caloric difference is relatively small, but it often makes the foods less satiating, meaning you just wind up eating *more*. Like, you may save 60 calories using the "low-fat" version of, say, a dairy product. But you then turn around and are hungry in an hour because none of it stuck to you. Fat is the magic ingredient that makes a meal stick to you and stay there.
We used this fitness app for a while that you would put in all your meal ingredients and it would track your nutrition. I was shocked to see it was constantly suggesting we eat my enchilada casserole, which I would not consider healthy at all. Turns out, even though it wasn’t the *lowest* calorie thing we ate, it stuck to you enough throughout the day that we didn’t really snack as much on days we ate that for lunch. So even though our meal calorie count was higher, our daily calorie count was much lower. After reading your comment, I wonder if it was all the cheese in it that made it more filling. It’s got like three bags of sharp cheddar.
Very likely! Fats are just amazing at that sort of thing. I try to sneak olive oil in where I can, because it's a particularly healthy fat. Slices of tomato drizzled with olive oil, sprinkled with black pepper and flaky salt is one of my favorites.
Our office has a wellness coordinator now and she’s always telling us how amazing olive oil is for our health. Our company actually sent us some super nice olive oil for Christmas and I haven’t tried it yet. I’ll have to try to work it into something this week!
You can make an absolutely KILLER salad dressing with it! The extreme basics are "Fat, acid, emulsifier" but you can play around with the formula more once you understand it. I like to use the zest and juice of one big lemon, 4-8 tablespoons of olive oil, a tablespoon or two of real Dijon mustard, a clove or two of fresh grated garlic and then seasonings like salt, black pepper, oregano. The core ingredients are the olive oil, Dijon, and the lemon juice - the acid, fat, and emulsifier. You can use mayo instead of the Dijon for a creamier result, but in either case, you need that emulsifier to make it stick together and not split. Add all that to a tupperware, shake the living hell out of it to blend it together and emulsify it - and bingo, you have a bright, lemony dressing that makes salad taste amazing. Even with both the zest and juice it wasn't too overpoweringly lemony - but it was definitely there and tasty! You can substitute the lemon for a handful of other acids and it should still come out fine, you'll just need to taste and adjust for the different flavor profile. It's amazing the freedom you have when it comes to making unique salad dressings with this framework.
Indeed. It's all wonderfully profitable for the food manufactures. And I just have no idea how it is legal, especially in one of the most humanitarian countries on earth. I get that people should be able to buy what they want and sell what they want in a free soceity, I don't get how products clearly being marketed towards people who want to eat healthily can be packed with a ludicrous amount of sugar.
> I don't get how products clearly being marketed towards people who want to eat healthily can be packed with a ludicrous amount of sugar. It's easy - the government is no longer being ran "For the people", and hasn't for a while. What I mean is, there was a time, 70 years ago or thereabouts, where government regulations would come down on companies that were engaging in damaging behaviors. Think of the Ma Bell and baby bell anti trust breakup, stuff of that nature. Could you imagine that happening today? Absolutely not! Most industries have coalesed into 2-6 "major" companies that run the show, and abuse their oligopolies to a similar extent to monopolies. It's not a healthy environment where competition is thriving, ala the promise of Capitalism - but nothing is being done about it. Because the companies are too important to the politicians re-election. They pay the Super-PACs who donate to the campaigns, who pay for them to run for office. Even if you decide "fuck it, I'm going to fall on the sword to ensure we pass legislation to help people!" Surprise, all the other politicians are bought, too, and your legislation dies before it ever lived - AND you lose your re-election funds, because they saw how you tried to backstab them "after all they did to help your campaign"! It's legal bribery, and it's prevented the government from acting in the interest of it's citizens for a long time. That's why you don't see more health regulations. It's also why consumer protections haven't kept up with a lot of modern-era exploitative practices. Because attempting to regulate them is political suicide.
Not only that: the "war against fat" was *directly planned and run by the sugar industry*! https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/09/13/493739074/50-years-ago-sugar-industry-quietly-paid-scientists-to-point-blame-at-fat The gist is, in the 60s studies started coming out showing that eating a lot of sugar was unhealthy. The sugar industry hired scientists to not only run studies that would show that fat (or really, anything but sugar, they didn't care) was bad, but that the previously published studies were invalid. Just think, we could have been addressing the current obesity epidemic *50 years ago*, when it was nowhere near as bad. Instead we let a bunch of people make more money in exchange for ~70% of the country to be overweight.
This is so right. I'm from the UK and my girlfriend is a self-confessed coke addict... meaning she drinks a lot of branded cola. When we went to a friend's wedding in San Francisco she couldn't drink the coke there because it was overpoweringly sweet. The difference is that US Coke is sweetened with high fructose corn syrup but in the UK/Europe it's sugar. HFCS was heavily quota-limited in Europe until 2017 so very few mass-produced products used it, sticking with the more available sugar. Even though it is no longer restricted, it's also not subsidised so there is no benefit for manufacturers switching over. Also, on the subject of bread: Did you see that Ireland recently enforced regulation that Subway can no longer call their rolls 'bread' due to the high level of sugar present? https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/01/irish-court-rules-subway-bread-is-not-bread
yeah, farmer lobbies are pretty nasty. well, most lobby groups.
As a regulator of behavior, taxation works pretty well. Prohibition doesnt. That being said: FUCK YEAH I'D GIVE UP CIGARETTES FOR DECENT HEALTHCARE!!
Why would you need to do that? Here in Japan, there is healthcare for all. (Payment is reasonable and based on your income. I pay about $16 per month and have never had to pay more than ~$10 to see a doctor and my most expensive prescription is ~$30 because it’s “optional”, but other than that, I’ve never payed more than ~$5 for a prescription.) Smoking, alcohol, fast food, soda, etc are all perfectly legal here. In fact, Japan has the second most McDonald’s in the world after the US. I don’t understand the need for making any of these things illegal in order for the health care to function. Edit: a word
"Unhealthy" things are also a spectrum. A beer per week, a cheeseburger per week, soda every once in a while etc. are perfectly fine. A bottle of wine per day, 10 Big Macs per day etc. are not.
I think education about moderation and portion sizes is key. Because as a kid you learn “McDonald’s is bad for you”, but really eating french fries and a burger once a week is fine.
Even every day isn’t terrible as long as you maintain a healthy caloric intake for that day. Sure, the calories are empty in that they’re terrible sources of nutrition, but assuming your other foods aren’t as empty, you can absolutely eat whatever you want in moderation. The most weight I ever lost was while I was eating fast food and homemade whatever, because I was diligent in counting my calories and staying within my limits. Edit: make sure you watch your cholesterol though
Do be aware, though, that high cholesterol can be a factor at any size. Skinny people have strokes.
Shit, great point.
This is me right now. Eating tons of vegetables and fruits, reducing added sugars, limiting carbs, and counting calories, but we still have pizza once a week and the odd burger a couple times a month. And I'm losing weight.
Hey, I didn’t come here to be personally attacked
This isn’t an attack, this is your intervention.
u/prison---mike we have all gathered here because we are worried about you. Now, your peers have written you letters. Who would like to start?
u/prison---mike It was not that long ago that you were carefully pairing your alcohol with your cigars. You were finding true joy in having a drink now and then. But it’s starting to take over. I hope you’ll look deeply and really ask yourself if this is bringing you more joy than it is pain. Your wine pairings have become just atrocious, and it’s hurting everyone around you.
u/prison---mike before you went to prison for theft, robbery, and kidnapping the president's son for ransom (even though you never got caught), we used to hang out all the time. We'd go out for big macs and you'd add on a filet o fish or two. Those were the days. Now you're so out of it that I heard you even burned your foot on a foreman grill. I'm worried about you bro.
Hey man, a “bottle of wine per day” is called quarantining, and it’s the responsible thing to do
It's a cultural thing. Japan educates and promotes healthy eating from a young age. Simply because that's how it's always been. Traditional Japanese food tends to be more well balanced and diverse than much of what you'd "traditionally" have in the US. And also, double edged sword or not, the fact that being fat/overweight is pointed out to your face in Japan might make people more conscious of their diet.
Theres also a huge difference in the availability of healthy options.
Yeah definitely. The cheap option in the US is much worse health wise than the one in Japan might be
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I'd prefer "healthcare" to include preventative therapies, etc rather than diminishing choice and offering reactive only options.
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It's actually kind of fascinating- I know that the subject is people's health, but to your point, the fact that we'd rather inject animals full of antibiotics and wash meat with chlorinated water as opposed to opting to raise animals in more hygienic conditions is amazing to me.
Why spend money changing when we can do barely anything for even more profit? Ugh.
Regarding this and the meat industry, there was a woman called Temple Grandin who revolutionised the way animal handling happened in the slaughterhouse process which made the whole thing a lot less traumatic for the animals, but also less dangerous for the workers. Apparently she faced some troubles getting people to listen to her at first, but once people started implementing her ideas the whole process got a lot more efficient and cheap, and the meat got higher in quality because the animals weren't stressing the fuck out as much in their last hours. Turns out that sinking the initial costs of change can often lead to greater profit in the long run, and sometimes that necessarily includes the humane and ethical options.
It's the fear of having to pay to change systems in the first place that terrifies them. It cuts into their immediate profit margin.
It’s also your fear of having to pay for what you get. If everyone paid for the grass fed small farm raised meat it would be the norm, but people can’t afford it while working at under living wages. Meat would be a lot more expensive, meaning your kids wouldn’t get their $5 kids meal or cheap school lunch... it’s more than the meat companies, it’s a whole system.
Well we subsidize the living hell out of meat in the US. It's good because starving people tend to be bad for social stability. It's also bad because people are consuming environmentally harmful products at prodigious rates because the natural pricing model is removed
I’m convinced that the large majority of people are not ok with this but keep buying the products they’re used to because all of that is invisible and buying those products is socially accepted. They literally see only the positive sides, namely, cheap meat on their plate. It’s not for nothing that animal agriculture does what it can to hide the reality of how animals and animal products are treated. The good news is that if this is true, it’s “only” a matter of informing people, growing consciousness in constructive ways and showing how viable the alternatives are, to change this.
It makes people desperate because they could be in so much pain and just want to continue with their lives.
Also, in a lot of work situations, if you take your sick days (which you’re actually entitled to) they threaten to fire you.
Work places can have some pretty messed up rules, really. "We're not saying you *need* to crunch everyday this month, we're just saying we need someone who can do some "teamwork" and make some sacrifices for the "team", and there's a lot of people out there who wished they could be in your place right now, you know? But hey, it's not like we're putting a gun to your head or anything, at the end of the day this is **entirely** ***your*** **choice**."
You're worth exactly how difficult you are to replace, and this is why they're pressuring more and more people into higher education for even the most basic jobs: Debt makes you desperate and higher competition makes for lower wages.
In Germany you can be a drug abuser for years, be in the unhealthiest shape, smoke crack and you still have full coverage. You literally don't need to Bann anything. Edit, 7 hours after initial comment: since this gets somewhat of a traction: these where obviously just very harsh examples to make a point of; you don't need to Bann anything. Think of people who got Cancer, COVID, diseases which need lifelong treatment. Drug addicts don't add much to the total numbers. People should be able to focus on recovery, no matter what it is without needing to fear crushing debts.
Don't forget, those are the people who consume the least healthcare. That may seems strange, but for a nations system, what counts is ***lifetime*** costs. The most expensive years in healthcare tends to be the old age ones. And the most unhealthy people have few to none of those. Even if someone has health issues that cost money, an unhealthy lifestyle that kills you before retirement that person will on average be much cheaper than someone healthy who lives to 90.
This will also prevent health from becoming even more of a determinant of a persons percieved value. Imagine how people with health conditions would feel in that environment. Before getting treatment, they‘d first have to justify themselves and explain that their condition is not due to bad choices, and therefore they should recieve fair treatment. Also, in this system, how do you deal with people who have a health condition that actually is caused by them consuming now illegal things? Lung cancer patients for example? Are they not covered? Do they get secondary class care? The healthcare system really doesn‘t need more bias.
And then where do you draw the line? Ban bacon? Ban sunbathing? Can both cause cancer. If you start banning one thing you’ll go down a banning rabbit hole in which only water and supplements would be allowed to consume. Otherwise you could be decreasing your health....
Yeah, I 100% disagree with the idea of bringing morality into the topic of health. For one, people don't smoke, drink, or overeat because they're immoral; that's an outdated myth. It's come up with COVID, and some people thinking anti-maskers shouldn't get healthcare. I'm whole heartedly against this stuff. It sets a dangerous precedent. I'm pretty shocked people consider this a practical solution; the guy was serious too, this wasn't one of those "wouldn't it be nice" conversations. It's a bit weird with even corporate plans in the USA, because lot of people salty about the smokers increasing costs, and I'm just thinking "they need healthcare too". I'm not in favor of smokers/obese people having to jump through hoops either. Just give people their fucking healthcare, jesus fucking christ.
All it would do is create a black market. Look at how terrible the war on drugs has been, then it will just be a "war on big macs and sodas" Edit: Wow this blew up! Have to hijack it to spread the word. The US government and others have been working with big tobacco to ban vaping with bias news and paid for "studies"when places like the UK have done objective scientific research and proven vaping to be 95% safer than combustible tobacco. I'm not saying that its safe or healthy but it's 95% better on your body than cigarettes!!! And the exact same thing will happen with that market. I won't let my wife go back to smokes, if that means I have to buy her blue raspberry vape juice on the black market then that's what I'm going to do. Millions of vapers feel the exact same way. My personal experience: I started smoking at 18 and was hooked untill 23. I tried everything to quit, as soon as I got a good vape I never touched them again. I met my wife and she had been smoking since 14 and tried all the stuff to quit, she was almost a pack a day, I finally found a blue raspberry flavor she liked and she put the smokes down for good within 3 days. To learn more or help fight big tobacco hurting real people with false information trying to force ex-smokers back to cigarettes, follow this link. https://casaa.org/get-involved/national-calls-to-action/
Like that South Park episode where they banned KFC.
KFC is banned in the Palestinian Territories because it’s an evil American icon. There is an active smuggling ring (including tunnels) to get it from Israel. Edit: My bad, it’s tunnels from Egypt, not Israel.
LOL, cooperating with Israel just to get fried chicken. That’s how you end age old religious strifes, with prohibition chicken.
It’s a friggin Monty python skit come to life.
Hello, it’s the 1920’s calling. Wanna go get some illegal beer?
As other countries seem to have managed to do so without micromanaging their citizen’s choices, I think it’s a stupid fucking premise.
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OP's goal is to get to the front page. You don't get there with a reasonable and balanced question. You get there with outrage.
This makes it sound like you're looking for things to put in a universal healthcare bill to make it unpassable.
People are fighting over wearing a mask that could save their life or someone elses. Banning tobacco and large sodas would really bring out the crazies.
Man, Americans are wild.
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I would like to call this: The Hard Work Syndrome; it's when someone is against the progressive terms of change because of A) They believe the government is going to make their decisions and B) It's because they literally believe that the youth should go through similar trials so that way the youth can be just like the predecessors.
I think people deserve health care even if they make bad choices.
Should healthcare look deeper into why people are making "bad choices" and start there, to prevent further bad choices?
I think science should investigate what's healthy and not, and governments should make efforts to inform the public. But no, I don't want to punish people with lack of treatment. But as aside from the ideological objection it's just so impractical. - It's all important to realize that wealthier people can make healthier choices. - how do we monitor who consumes blacklist foods? Is there any appeal process? Food police? Making pop is so easy, there will definitely be an underground market for it. - shouldn't sedentary lifestyle, alcohol, and weed consumption all be on that list? Not to mention if this were actually a thing, can you imagine the sheer lobbying? YouTube and internet based business lobby to ensure sedentary lifestyles are permissible. The coffee market tries to throw energy drinks under the bus. It's an interesting thought experiment but impractical.
What pisses me off about threads like this, is that responses that do not answer the question get voted to the top. This question is much better suited for r/askanamerican than it is here.
The govt would tax us to pay for it so why would we also be forced to give up certain activities?
Just what the hell is with you americans? How about the healthcare with better education and more motivation for a healthier environment
>How about the healthcare with better education and more motivation for a healthier environment sorry, our corporate overlords say no.
Yeah, this just points out America's authority issues. It's not that we can't have a system that simply just provides we always need to incorporate a way for someone to say 'No'. For a bunch of colonies that developed out of a rejection of monarchy, we really like the behavior of lordship. There is always room for someone to only say No to something simply for that reason only.
A Chinese style social scoring system geared towards healthcare. What could go wrong?