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This topic comprises 7 pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
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Author
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Topic: New York plans to ban sugared drinks over 16 oz.
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Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted 06-03-2012 07:39 PM
If you don't have any health insurance at all, what's the alternative? The only one I can think of is paying for whatever medical care you need at the point you need it. That's great if you're wealthy and healthy, but if you're an average earner and suddenly need a triple heart bypass, you're buggered.
The problem is to create a health insurance (doesn't really matter whether we're talking European style, i.e. run by governments, or US style, run by the private sector, for the purpose of this argument) system that provides a realistic safety net at a reasonable price, while at the same time discouraging stupid risk taking. And because it's health we're talking about, it's a very emotive issue. If you told some a-hole who'd caused a 20-vehicle pileup while high on crack that you weren't going to sell him car insurance and that if he tried to drive without it you'd throw him in jail, very few would object. But if you told someone who lives on a diet of cheeseburgers and never exercises that he has to pay cash up front for his bypass if and when he needs it, and that if he can't you're going to leave him to die, there'd be pushback on a huge scale. And furthermore, how do you prove that he's lived on a diet of cheeseburgers and never exercised?
That's about the one and only argument I can think of in favour of using legal regulation (what Bloomberg is proposing) and/or the tax system to encourage a healthy diet - it avoids having to pass those sorts of judgments on people and provides a mechanism for the people who eat/drink the stuff that causes the health problems to foot the bill for paying for them. The problem is that unless you live in a dictatorship, unpopular laws don't work - they are either ignored (both by violators and law enforcement most of the time), circumvented or eventually got rid of by popular demand.
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 06-03-2012 08:38 PM
quote: Joe Redifer
I have diabetes so that makes me a high risk for health insurance. So you're saying I deserve the price gouging because of my shitty genes?
No. I said someone who knowingly makes bad health decisions and ends up with a case of diabetes he could have prevented deserves to get price gouged. He knew what he was doing and chose to take the risks anyway.
Yes, some people get diabetes simply due to genetics -particularly children who are born with the condition. They don't deserve to get price gouged. If it weren't for the legions of other people coming down with preventable cases of diabetes it wouldn't cost so damned much to people who developed diabetes through no fault of their own.
quote:
Things aren't as black and white as you make them sound. You also seem to take an elitist view of other people. Can people be healthier? You bet. Can everybody be perfectly fit? No way!
I'm not asking for everyone to have the body of an elite athlete. However, I think everyone needs to know their own health risks and actively manage them. Most Americans do not. They blindly live in denial eating whatever tastes good, eating too much of it and not getting any exercise.
quote: Joe Redifer
Not everyone can be thin. Everyone can't become vegetarians. For one, I absolutely abhor the taste of most vegetables. They need to make things that are good for you AND taste good.
I don't know if the food industry could do that, but right now they're not the slightest bit interested in trying. They're into making food that is cheap, quick to prepare and more profitable. That food is shit in terms of nutritional quality.
It's unfortunate that fresh fruit and vegetables aren't as tasty as a bag of Doritos®. Nevertheless, everyone should be eating more of that stuff and far less in the way of junk food.
quote: Joe Redifer
Also, the BMI index or whatever it is called, the one that decides if a person is officially obese by the amount of body fat they have, is royally messed up.
The BMI index is a grossly outdated tool. All it measures is ratio of height versus weight. I'm considered "normal" under that, but a professional body builder the same height as me would be considered overweight or obese for all the extra muscle mass he built onto his frame.
There are better methods that do measure body fat. However, body fat measurements alone aren't enough. Like I said in earlier posts, skinny people can die of heart attacks. They can have high cholesterol, high blood pressure, clogged arteries, etc.
quote: Randy Stankey
There just shouldn't be any health insurance at all.
If hospitals had to survive only on what patients could pay out of pocket -no insurance, no Medicare/Medicaid- just about every hospital in this country would close. Most doctors and other health care workers would find something else to do for a living.
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Mike Blakesley
Film God
Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 06-03-2012 08:43 PM
After reading all the posts here, I can see where a regulation might be a good idea on sizes, BUT it needs to be a reasonable regulation that can be enforced.
1. A 16-ounce soda at a movie theatre doesn't contain 16-ounces of soda. If you put the proper amount of ice in, maybe you get 10 ounces. Even back in the 1970s, when there were no fat people and nobody ever died of anything, a "Large" was at least 24 ounces. A "Small" was about 12 ounces maybe.
2. Even if you had 16 ounces of fluid, that's not really enough to quench your thirst for a two-or-three-hour movie.
3. If you can go buy another soda, then what's the point of the regulation? Clearly, what's needed is some form of chip implanted in everyone where we can regulate the amount of any product they buy in a day. (Kidding with this idea)
Bottom line, I seriously doubt that very many people are overweight simply because of soda. This is obviously a foot-in-door effort and the next target will be double burgers, or the number of pieces in an order of KFC, or something.
quote: Bobby Henderson
He knew what he was doing and chose to take the risks anyway.
I get in my pickup everyday and drive it, knowing full well I could be killed in a horrible wreck. Does that mean I shouldn't be allowed to drive (or have my mileage limited)?
I'm just trying to make the point that there are no easy answers to this question. What if everyone suddenly stopped drinking soda-pop? Can you imagine the millions of jobs lost? If everyone started living a "healthy" lifestyle, it would decimate the health-care industry.
I have a buddy who is a fireman. He's constantly preaching fire safety, but he told me the best part of his job is when there's a fire. So....obviously fire prevention is good for people, but bad for firemen.
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Randy Stankey
Film God
Posts: 6539
From: Erie, Pennsylvania
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 06-03-2012 09:52 PM
In 1996, Professor James Fox of Northeastern University in Boston did a study on auto insurance and testified to the State Attorney General on his findings.
He bought several used cars. Each of them were identical models, except for the color. (e.g. One was red and one was blue.) He damaged them in identical ways. (Smashing in the fenders or breaking the headlights, etc.) He hired some college students to drive these identically damaged cars around to various repair shops in the area to get quotes for the cost of repairs. The students were instructed to flip a coin and, when asked whether the car was insured for collision, to say "Yes" or "No" based on the coin flip. They collected several quotes from different repair shops and returned the paperwork to the university where the cost was analyzed.
In every case, the cost to repair the insured cars was higher than the cost to repair an uninsured car by an average factor of two.
Identical cars with identical damage cost twice as much to fix simply because the owner had insurance!
Do you not think this is going on in the heath insurance racket as well?
Simply put, the very existence of heath insurance very likely drives up the cost of heath care. Without insurance, heath care providers could not jack up their prices and they would be forced to charge only prices that the market would bear. If (theoretically) heath insurance was made illegal, the cost of heath care would drop by at least half, practically overnight.
I, personally, have been turned away from doctors simply because I did not have insurance.
I had a case of step throat and called a doctor for an appointment. The FIRST thing I was asked, even before I got to tell the receptionist my problem was, "Do you have insurance?" I answered, truthfully, "No." I was immediately put on hold for more than 15 minutes. Then, when the woman returned, I was told that the doctor didn't have any appointments available for three months. I hung up and called back in about a half hour. This time, I lied and said that I did have insurance. Again, without asking about my problem, I was given an appointment for the next day.
When I got there, the receptionist asked me for my insurance information and I said that I didn't have any. She got mad at ME for lying! When I confronted her and said that I had called earlier but was turned down for not having insurance, she got real quiet.
I paid cash money and the total bill came out to something like $150 including the throat culture. Tell me how much that would have cost if the bill had been sent to the insurance company? $300 or more?
The government, stepping outside of its original mandate, saw fit to meddle in affairs that they have no business trifling with and drove up heath care costs for everybody. Now they have to deal with the unintended consequences of their actions by enacting silly laws that dictate what people should or should not eat. That's lunacy!
Our governments need to stop meddling where they have no business intruding and get back to the basics we hired them for. When and IF they ever do that, I might be willing to discuss other issues but not until.
If I was a projectionist at your theater and I kept fucking up the movies and damaging the equipment would you keep me as an employee? No! When you called me into the office to fire me but I said that I cleaned the windows in the box office would you say, "That's all right?" Would you, then, send me downstairs to pick up empty popcorn and soda cups in the auditoriums? Hell no! You'd tell me to get lost!
Why are we letting our government(s) fuck up their jobs so badly but then telling them, "That's all right," then sending them downstairs to pick up the trash?
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Mitchell Dvoskin
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1869
From: West Milford, NJ, USA
Registered: Jan 2001
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posted 06-03-2012 10:39 PM
Actually, health insurance works the exact opposite of what Randy posted. The insurance companies pay a small fraction of what an uninsured patient would pay for an office visit, lab work, home health aids, etc. If the patient has Medicare (seniors), they get paid an even smaller fraction of what they normally charge, and if they have Medicaid (the poor), they get reimbursed at such a low rate that many doctors will no longer accept Medicaid. Many of these plans, including Medicare & Medicaid, prohibit the billing of the patient for the difference as part of the contract.
The office staff at Randy's doctor's office is either uninformed on how medical billing works, or the office has been stiffed by uninsured patients who show up but can not pay for the visit.
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Mike Blakesley
Film God
Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 06-04-2012 08:33 PM
The lawyers are, predictably, salivating over this.
Wall Street Journal
June 1, 2012, 10:18 p.m. ET
Legal Debate Pops Over Soda Plan
By MICHAEL HOWARD SAUL and TAMER EL-GHOBASHY
Beverage and restaurant industry executives are exploring their options—including the possibility of filing a lawsuit—for blocking Mayor Michael Bloomberg's proposal to ban city restaurants and a variety of other venues from selling sugary drinks in containers larger than 16 ounces.
"Everything is on the table," said Christopher Gindlesperger, director of public affairs for the American Beverage Association in Washington.
Mr. Bloomberg spent the better part of the week trumpeting his plan as a creative health initiative that would pass legal muster, an opinion several attorneys specializing in civil matters backed. But some industry experts disagreed, saying they believe there's ample room to challenge the proposal in court.
"It's a pretty slam-dunk win," said Robert Bookman, an attorney who has long represented the restaurant industry. He added: "They don't have the authority to interfere with interstate commerce. Just because they license restaurants doesn't mean that they can determine every item that could be sold in a restaurant or the sizes of it."
Mr. Bookman said it would be "impossible for there to be a food industry" if every locality in the U.S. established its own set of rules governing, for example, product sizes. Size of products is specifically regulated by the federal government, he said.
Other lawyers suggested a legal argument could center around sugar, asking why the sugar in soda is being singled-out while that in candy is not.
The mayor and members of his administration have said repeatedly they believe the city's Board of Health, an 11-member panel appointed by the mayor, has the authority to prohibit venues—such as restaurants, mobile food carts, delis and concession stands at movies, stadiums and arenas—from selling sugary beverages in cups or containers larger than 16 ounces.
City officials said they don't expect the ban to be imposed before March of next year. With Mr. Bloomberg set to leave office in December 2013 and the possibility that litigation could tie the matter up in court for months, some say the proposal's opponents could succeed by delaying the ban until Mr. Bloomberg's successor takes the helm.
Some mayoral candidates have already signaled they have reservations about the mayor's proposal. One potential candidate, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, said Friday he's leaning toward supporting the proposal, but believes it needs further public scrutiny.
Scott Greenfield, an attorney, said the government is permitted "reasonable regulation," and a proposal that is stated to be in the interest of public health could pass "rational scrutiny" in court. "Everybody can think it's a dumb idea but it doesn't make it unconstitutional," he said.
Ron Kuby, a civil-rights attorney who is known for his challenges of government policies and practices, agreed, saying that governments are given broad powers to regulate "the general area of sales and goods and general economic activity."
Mr. Kuby said he believes there is no legal requirement to explain banning large sodas versus large chocolate bars. In the area of sales and goods, "rights can be regulated with a very blunt instrument" as long as they don't infringe on fundamental constitutional rights.
A legal challenge, Mr. Kuby said, would ultimately fail. The only way "to remedy this," he said, "is through the democratic process."
On Friday, McDonald's weighed in via Twitter: "@MikeBloomberg We trust our customers to make the choices that are best for them."
While the industry scrambles to craft a legal strategy to block the proposal, other avenues are also being considered. Executives are discussing the possibility of trying to persuade the City Council or state Legislature to block the ban via legislation.
Jamie McShane, a spokesman for the council, said council lawyers have determined that the board has the authority to deal with this type of proposal. It has yet to be determined whether the council has the power to try to block it, or whether it will try to do so, he said.
A spokesman for Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, a Manhattan Democrat, said the speaker has reservations about the mayor's proposal but he "does not envision legislation to stop" it before the sessions ends this month.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Friday he doesn't believe the mayor's proposal can do "any harm." If voters disapprove of it, they can elect a new mayor next year who could undo the ban, he said.
Industry executives said they will continue aggressive efforts to inform the public about the impact of sugar-sweetened beverages on obesity. While there will be an opportunity to lobby the Board of Health, many say that could prove futile since the members are appointed by the mayor.
The proposal is slated to be introduced at the board's June 12 meeting.
Wall Street Journal link
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