Thursday, September 24, 2009

Sugar tax for improved national health outcomes?

Sidebar poll from The New England Journal of Medicine:

Do you favor taxing sugar-sweetened beverages as a way of helping to finance health care reform and improving public health?

No (26.0%, 493 Votes)

Yes (74.0%, 1,419 Votes)

Total Voters: 1,912 (as of 9/17/09)

Your vote???

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yes! Why not? We tax cigarettes in order to discourage smoking, which has dramatic known negative health consequences we all wind up paying for. Why not start taxing the sources of the obesity epidemic?

Ken
Dallas

Daniel Gray said...

We're subsidizing the corn syrup in our sweet snacks. Might as well tax the sugar so it evens out.

Unknown said...

It's a flawed idea. You tax something to discourage its consumption but also to raise revenue? It doesn't make sense, sends a mixed message and represents government intruding too much in the lives of private citizens..