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America’s losing battle against diabetes

reuters.com

21–30 of 182 posts

Re: America’s losing battle against diabetes

#21

Easiest solution to diabetes: Sugar tax. Easiest solution to climate change: Carbon tax. If we havn't used these solutions, someone high up in the food chain is placing a greater emphasis on profits from the status quo instead of the wellbeing of the population.

A lot of the people who buy those things also object.

Re: America’s losing battle against diabetes

#23

Easiest solution to diabetes: Sugar tax. Easiest solution to climate change: Carbon tax. If we havn't used these solutions, someone high up in the food chain is placing a greater emphasis on profits from the status quo instead of the wellbeing of the population.

80% of people with Type 2 diabetes who are overweight would be asymptomatic if they lost weight. Perhaps we should tax obesity and not burden those who know how to eat responsibly?

Re: America’s losing battle against diabetes

#24

Easiest solution to diabetes: Sugar tax. Easiest solution to climate change: Carbon tax. If we havn't used these solutions, someone high up in the food chain is placing a greater emphasis on profits from the status quo instead of the wellbeing of the population.

The right solution is to educate people about what their A1C means and to incentivize them to check it. Most people don't know what theirs is - I would bet that less than five people in this very thread have checked their A1C in the last six months. Remember that diet isn't always sufficient to lower A1C and you may need drugs or other lifestyle changes.

Mandate A1C checks bi-yearly for insurance providers or have them pass along the penalty.

Re: America’s losing battle against diabetes

#25

Easiest solution to diabetes: Sugar tax. Easiest solution to climate change: Carbon tax. If we havn't used these solutions, someone high up in the food chain is placing a greater emphasis on profits from the status quo instead of the wellbeing of the population.

Stop taxing everything. Tax is not the solution for everything. The people buying soda are generally the poor or middle class. All this does it take more money from those who need it the most. What we need to do is regulate how much sugar you can put into foods. But we can't do that. We have to prop up the corn industry with subsidies. Sugar and HFCS is in literally everything. By adding a sugar tax you're basically…

While I partially agree, I think it's for different reasons.

Mostly those being "you cannot accurately predict how taxing will play out."

But "poor or middle class" people choosing $2 soda over $3 orange juice... might choose $3 orange juice over $2 soda that has a $2 tax slapped on it. You cannot argue "they'll just keep buying the same thing when it's taxed all to hell."

(Orange juice probably isn't much better than soda, but that's not the point of my argument.)

Sugar is not "literally in everything." Not for the dictionary meanings of "literally" and "everything." Though it does seem that yes - the corn industry, especially HFCS should not be subsidized... the exact opposite of taxing! So repeal those subsidies, and maybe put taxes on HFCS at the industry level (rather than the consumer level). If industry, rather than the government, want to foot the bill for HFCS and sell it at a loss, then at least we've shifted the problem.

Re: America’s losing battle against diabetes

#26

Easiest solution to diabetes: Sugar tax. Easiest solution to climate change: Carbon tax. If we havn't used these solutions, someone high up in the food chain is placing a greater emphasis on profits from the status quo instead of the wellbeing of the population.

Stop taxing everything. Tax is not the solution for everything. The people buying soda are generally the poor or middle class. All this does it take more money from those who need it the most. What we need to do is regulate how much sugar you can put into foods. But we can't do that. We have to prop up the corn industry with subsidies. Sugar and HFCS is in literally everything. By adding a sugar tax you're basically…

I guess from your perspective, people will buy something they want no matter how expensive it is.

Re: America’s losing battle against diabetes

#27

Easiest solution to diabetes: Sugar tax. Easiest solution to climate change: Carbon tax. If we havn't used these solutions, someone high up in the food chain is placing a greater emphasis on profits from the status quo instead of the wellbeing of the population.

Stop taxing everything. Tax is not the solution for everything. The people buying soda are generally the poor or middle class. All this does it take more money from those who need it the most. What we need to do is regulate how much sugar you can put into foods. But we can't do that. We have to prop up the corn industry with subsidies. Sugar and HFCS is in literally everything. By adding a sugar tax you're basically…

taxes are one of the best tools to incentivize behaviors we want and disincentivize the ones we don’t.

Trouble is that too few people understand this and therefore politicians present taxes as fair/unfair

Re: America’s losing battle against diabetes

#28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stop taxing everything. Tax is not the solution for everything. The people buying soda are generally the poor or middle class. All this does it take more money from those who need it the most. What we need to do is regulate how much sugar you can put into foods. But we can't do that. We have to prop up the corn industry with subsidies. Sugar and HFCS is in literally everything. By adding a sugar tax you're basically…

Tax sugar and give it back as a UBI. That alleviates the regressive tax concern. But I suspect that that's not the real reason you're against it. If your real concern is the expansion of the state, then implement a sugar tax and reduce other taxes. Whatever your concern, a sugar and carbon tax are great ideas (due to incentive alignment) and can be made to work.

Exactly. The tax externalities and dividend system is such an underappreciated idea.

Sugar, carbon, and land are things that we move quickly to implement and bring it to more and more externalities.

Re: America’s losing battle against diabetes

#29
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stop taxing everything. Tax is not the solution for everything. The people buying soda are generally the poor or middle class. All this does it take more money from those who need it the most. What we need to do is regulate how much sugar you can put into foods. But we can't do that. We have to prop up the corn industry with subsidies. Sugar and HFCS is in literally everything. By adding a sugar tax you're basically…

Scotland introduced a sugar tax. As a result, many of the most popular products switched to sugar substitutes. For example, Scotland is one of the few countries in the world where Coca-Cola is not the most popular fizzy drink. Irn Bru is. Following the sugar tax, Irn Bru changed the recipe to use alternative sweeteners. Some people complained, and there is an original version, but it is far more common to see the sug…

Are the alternative sweeteners any better for people's health and/or the environment? If not, then it's hard to say the tax "worked". If so, what are they?
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