Finally, a nanny state regulation I can get behind

[archerships]

http://cafehayek.com/2010/05/open-letter-to-prof-barry-popkin.html

Dear Prof. Popkin:

A segment on WJLA-TV’s 11:00pm newscast yesterday featured you endorsing a tax on pizza. You justified such a tax on grounds that Americans today eat too much “junk food.”

Believing Americans to be too dimwitted or lacking in self-control to choose for themselves what to eat, you obviously also believe that college professors possess the moral authority to propose that government dictate the contents of other people’s diets.

So the rules of civil society, as you see them, are apparently these: If Professor divines that Person isn’t acting in Person’s own best interests, government should obstruct Person’s efforts to live as he or she wishes and prod Person to live instead according to how Professor wants Person to live.

I, too, can play by these rules.

I propose that all articles and books advocating that government intrude into people’s private choices be taxed at very high rates. Socially irresponsible producers of such “junk” scholarship churn out far too much of it. As a result, unsuspecting Americans consume harmfully large quantities of this scholarship – scholarship made appealing only because its producers cram it with sweet and superficially gratifying expressions of noble goals. These empty intellectual ‘calories’ trick our brains – which evolved in an environment that lacked today’s superabundant access to junk scholarship – into craving larger and larger, even super-sized, portions of such junk.

The tax I propose would reduce Americans’ consumption of this mentally debilitating, university-processed junk that serves only to inflate its producers’ egos and consulting fees while it makes the rest of us intellectually flabby and clogs our neural pathways with notions that are toxic to each individual who reads it and to the entire body-politic.

As a nation, we have a duty to prevent our fellow citizens from mindlessly ruining their minds – for when any one mind is damaged by the consumption of junk scholarship, the rest of us are harmed by the resulting obesity of the state.

Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Professor of Economics
George Mason University
Fairfax, VA 22030

Posted via email from crasch's posterous

Comments

[nasu-dengaku.livejournal.com]

Here's the thing... the system needs to be self-consistent to work well.

If we're doing government-subsidized health care, the government needs to incentivize people to not waste healthcare resources, and that means encouraging healthy behaviors and discouraging unhealthy ones. That can be done in a variety of ways, including taxing unhealthy food. Of course, it would be more efficient to just end corn syrup subsidies instead of subsidizing the raw materials *and then* taxing the finished product.

If people are fully bearing the costs for individual health care (the more libertarian scenario) then taxing junk food is silly as people are already impacted by their food choices.

I do agree with the sentiment that there's a lot of bad science journalism out there.

[crasch.livejournal.com]

Yes, which is one of the many reaons why libertarians oppose socialized health care. Do you smoke? Engage in anal sex? Ride a motorcycle? Take drugs? If your paying for the risks yourself, I don't care what you do. If I'm paying for your healthcare, I now have an incentive to try to control your lifestyle.

[nasu-dengaku.livejournal.com]

Oh, I know libertarians oppose socialized health care. :-) I'm just saying there's a right and a wrong way of doing socialized healthcare, and not incentivizing people to act healthy is the wrong way.

[crasch.livejournal.com]

Which is why I would "incentivize" the "right" policies by imposing a heavy tax on those who propose either socialized medicine or nanny state regulations.

[nasu-dengaku.livejournal.com]

You want to tax free speech? :P

By the way, what would your ideal healthcare system look like?

One problem I have with the current system is that it's too easy for insurance companies to screw patients in various ways and for drug companies / hospitals / medical device manufacturers to inflate prices. My ideal libertarian-style health care system would still put some regulations on insurance companies in terms of when they can pick up and drop coverage and would change the economic incentives for the rest of the healthcare industry so that their profit is maximized when people are kept healthy at the lowest possible cost.

I think both libertarian and socialized healthcare can be done successfully.

[crasch.livejournal.com]

You want to tax free speech?

You want to tax what I eat? :P

By the way, what would your ideal healthcare system look like?

In my ideal world, you would be able to buy any drug you wished (including currently illegal drugs) from anyone without a prescription. If you came up with a new drug or medical device, you could immediately offer it for sale to anyone. You would not fear losing millions as a result of bogus lawsuits based on bad science. You could buy medical services from anyone you wanted. Medical personnel from all over the world could freely immigrate to the U.S.

As a result of the above, you would find a cornucopia of new drugs, devices, and services at low cost that aren't currently offered today.

You could buy insurance from any company, located anywhere in the world. You would probably have a high deductible health insurance policies (to cover unforeseeable, costly events) and pay out of pocket for routine care. Your insurance would follow you, not be tied to your employer.

There would be no punitive taxes or regulations on cigarettes, alcohol, drugs, fatty foods, motorcycles, etc. You would be free to partake if you wished.

However, you would probably be careful about what you ate and the risks you took, since you knew that if caught a disease or were injured, your medical care would come out of your pocket, or depend on the kindness of strangers. Children, the disabled, and others who can't care for themselves through no fault of their own would be cared for by charities.

Rather than depend on medical licensure to ensure quality, you would look for a certification from a medical certification board that you trusted. You know there will be no medicare or medicaid when you're old, so you start saving up for healthcare in your old age. When you're old, you probably don't spend a lot of money on mostly futile treatments that don't buy you much time. Or maybe you do. It's up to you.

You take home a lot more money from each pay check, which you're then free to spend on your own priorities (charity, personnel projects, coke and hookers, whatever), rather than the priorities of those who control the purse strings in Washington.

In brief:

* No medical licensure requirements.
* No FDA.
* No Medicare/Medicaid
* No laws preventing insurance companies from competing across state lines.
* No mandatory service provisions for hospitals.
* Loser pays tort reform.
* Caps on "pain and suffering" punitive damages.
* No DEA and/or drug laws
* No immigration laws
* No tax privileges for employer provided health insurance
* Specialized science courts to try drug/medical device lawsuits

[crasch.livejournal.com]

What would your ideal health care system look like?

[nasu-dengaku.livejournal.com]

I think there are multiple potential systems that could work. I do like the idea of universal healthcare, but I want to harness market systems to make the solution efficient.

I outline some potential changes here:

http://nasu-dengaku.livejournal.com/284115.html

[papertygre.livejournal.com]

I just want to say that this is a great letter.

[seidhr.livejournal.com]

Oh lol. That is awesome.