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Comment by callmeed | Hacker News Reader

This story and the comments here are quite interesting and I'm really torn on this.

On one hand, I think the government does have a job to intervene when negative externalities affect society (like obesity has). On the other hand, as this story demonstrates, they clearly suck at intervening.

On a personal level, I don't care what McDonalds does because I don't take my kids there (I have 3 kids under 7). But I care about obesity being a drain on society and a healthcare issue we all have to share. McDonalds, well, they care about profits.

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I wonder if there is some political philosophy to describe my thoughts on this - but I never understood why government just didn't set up taxes on things it didn't like, and directly allocate the revenues from those taxes to the opposite side of whatever stance it took (versus going towards general expenses).

For example with this, tax the happy meal and other fatty kids foods, allocate revenues earned from that tax directly to childhood obesity prevention campaigns. McDonald's still makes money, kids still can get happy meals, and childhood obesity is reduced through funding effective programs.

They tried this with the tobacco taxes / settlements and just decided to spend it any way they wanted.

In Hungary they are taxing too fatty, too sweet and too salty foods. Oh.. and drinks with high coffeine content.

http://www.chew.hu/welcome_to_the_maybe_healthy_a.html

Some foods' salty version costing twice as much as the non-salty version (for example peanuts).

I can't say we like it...

Nothing stops the government from simply changing the law to fix such loopholes. So, it's actually safer to craft something vary specific and deal with attempts to get around the intent than craft something really generic. AKA, no store which generates 95+% of it's revenue from food may sell, give away, or market Toys. would probably have worse downsides than simply creating an ineffective law.

I don't understand how obesity is a drain on 'society,' except through state-financed medical care. I don't suffer anymore because other people are fat. Why should I be able to control what they eat?

Medical costs are almost 20% of US GDP. even if you are in private medical care, you're still subsidizing obese insurance customers in the same risk pool to some extent. Plus you have to factor in the wider economic effects of lost productivity, non-food consumption and so on. For example, most hospitals beds are now expected to accommodate patients weighing 400 lbs., the cost of which is distributed across all patients even though relatively few patients actually weigh that much. Don't have the numbers to hand right now, but when I did a rough estimate of causes vs. costs of mortality it came out something like a 1% drag on GDP from obesity.

Diabetes, which is a good proxy for obesity-related mortality, costs >$100 bn a year already: http://www.forbes.com/2010/01/13/kramer-obesity-nutrition-in...

> Medical costs are almost 20% of US GDP. even if you are in private medical care, you're still subsidizing obese insurance customers in the same risk pool to some extent.

Not if the risk pool is priced correctly. If it's priced correctly, there are no cross-group subsidies.

> you have to factor in the wider economic effects of lost productivity

Not at all. They're paid less. Surely you're not going to argue that they owe "full productivity"? If so, there are lots of other things that affect productivity, so what makes obesity special?

"Negative externalities" should never be a license to abridge individual liberty. What about the "negative externalities" of smoking, drinking, listening to punk music, homosexuality, or reading subversive literature?

No thanks, you can keep your nanny state to yourself. I may not approve of my fellow citizens feeding their children happy meals but by god I will defend their right to do so just as strongly as I'll defend anyone's right to love who they desire, listen to what they want, read what they want, and say what they want.

I completely disagree with what you wrote, but yon don't deserve to be downvoted.

You don't believe that the "negative externalities" of smoking or drinking should be addressed in any way? Even through (say) taxes/surcharges on said products?

If there are indeed "negative externalities" then there are almost always better ways to address them than limiting individual liberty. I wasn't joking when I mentioned listening to punk music and homosexuality as also having negative externalities. Almost every behavior has some negative externality, even breathing. If we are to use the excuse of control of "negative externalities" as a lever to modify individual behavior then that lever becomes almost trivial to use to create a police state where every behavior is within the realm of the government to regulate.

You must really hate that new $600/yr insurance premium for all smokers, right.?

When industries are powerful enough to ignore markets and regulation they ARE governing you with their choices.

In what way does what I said imply that?

That’s the first I’ve heard of personal obesity as an externality. Frightening idea. What if someone lives a lifestyle that makes them more likely to contract an STD, say?

Per the other big thread of the day, such a lifestyle is reducing Amit Gupta's life expectancy.

Well, if that STD happens to cause cervical cancer (which HPV does), then some states may consider requiring girls get a vaccine against such a virus. And indeed that debate is going on right now.

Regardless, STDs aren't a byproduct of some Fortune 500 company's quest to grow shareholder value. Obesity is.

> Regardless, STDs aren't a byproduct of some Fortune 500 company's quest to grow shareholder value.

None of the bathhouses ("while the band played on") were Fortune 500, but they were profiting.

It's fair to suggest that the behavior would have happened without bathhouses, but that same argument applies to McDs.

Note that the nutritonal information that McDs passes out has been more effective than the bowls of condoms were.

No, I'm not referring to HPV.

> and a healthcare issue we all have to share.

Any "sharing" is a choice. Why are they obligated to make that choice less expensive? If you don't like their expenses, don't pay them. And, don't take their money.

> But I care about obesity being a drain on society

Surely you're not arguing that people "owe" society full-productivity or somesuch?

They prefer food. If that's a problem for you, perhaps you should wonder why food is more important to them than the things you want them to value.

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