I think it could be a good idea … not just speaking as a diabetic but giving kids nutritionally null sugary drinks is not healthy. What the hell ever happened to just drinking water when you are thirsty? I have no problem with a single serving [meaning 8 oz] of juice for breakfast, even though just eating the fruit would be healthier, but as a common beverage for quenching thirst water works just fine. Not to mention is a lot less expensive than a storebought drink.
My brother and I grew up getting OJ and coffee at breakfast, milk at lunch and dinner, and any other time was water, or as a rare treat koolaid [usually only if there were a passel of neighborhood kids around] I also remember flat coke or ginger ale when we were sick with stomach problems. Hot tea with lemon and honey for colds.
Back when I worked at the ADT call center [mid 90s] one guy who worked there brought in 2 3 liter nondiet cokes and drank them in his 8 hour shift. I went to uni with a woman who drank 3 6 packs of dr pepper a day.
I will admit that 3 years ago when I was seriously hypercalcemic and waiting for my parathyroid operation I was combatting serious fatigue [as in sleep 10 hours, get up, go to work and start to nod off] and I would do a 6 pack of red bull a day and still barely manage to stay awake. that ended as soon as I got the operation and my calcium worked its way back into my bones relieving the serious nap attackage. Though I do like a red bull now and then for the flavor, once they go flat.
Really, flat coke or ginger ale for stomach problems? We were always given non-flat Vernor’s (a particularly efforvescent brand of ginger ale) for stomach problems. While there’s nothing medically redeeming about soda-pop, I’d always thought that the folk-medicine reason for soft drinks was for the specific purpose of introducing bubbles to the stomach!
(FWIW, hot Vernor’s loses much of its gas, but it’s also a delicious way to enjoy it. I don’t mean room temperature; I mean like tea.)
When Obese Bob sits in the next cubicle and we are on the same private employer-sponsored health plan, my premiums go up when Bob consumes more healthcare resources to treat his adult-onset diabetes, high blood pressure, gallstones and other obesity-related health problems.
My private insurance premiums subsidize his health care.
What is the negative externality of tobacco? You already said you don’t have a problem with that sin tax, and the only negative externality there is the health of the user, just like with soda.
As far as I’m concerned, pbbth nailed it. If you need to budget for healthcare and reduce the consumption of high-calorie soda, stop subsidizing corn farming.
I’m for it, after watching the commercials the soft drink industry is promoting where they whine that “food” is being taxed. That’s not fucking food, it’s a basically nutrition-free sweet beverage.
Besides, we already have soda - and bottled water - taxes here in the Chicago area, and I still drink (diet) soda when I need a caffeine fix. Go for it.
Of course it’s food. The very first definition of food from dictionary.com is “any nourishing substance that is eaten, drunk, or otherwise taken into the body to sustain life, provide energy, promote growth, etc.”
The sugar and water in soda are nourishing, even if it does not have anything else going for it then it still meets the definition.
Just because you don’t like something does not mean you can redefine words to make them agree with what you think. It IS food and thus the commercial is correct - they are taxing food.
I don’t have a problem with it, overall, but that is because I have a wierd little libertarian socialist communalist philosophy that is very self-contradictory.
If I thought about it much I would be pissed about it.
I don’t care all that much as it stands now. I wouldn’t vote for or against it. I would abstain for that question.
I do agree that there should be no corn subsidies.
It’s a really crappy excuse for food, and their panicked wording is misleading in that it sounds like more than their sweet little drinks are being affected. And naturally, they don’t reveal in the commercial who’s behind that ‘public service announcement’ - it sounds like a concerned consumer group or something, being so sad that working mommies and daddies can’t fill the bellies of them and their kids with nutritious calorie-laden drinks.
Which, I’ll note, I’ve drunk even with a tax on, as have millions of people in the Chicago area for a long time. Same with no-calorie bottled water, booze, and so on.
Anyway, I’m against a regressive tax that won’t make anyone healthier. Drinking less soda would make people healthier, but I doubt a 3 cent tax is going to do that, especially when water is already so much cheaper.
Why are you in an employer-sponsored health plan, if the price does not reflect the benefit you receive, or the cost of providing that benefit? Is it because you still think it is better than the alternatives, or is it because the government or your employer is restricting your ability to choose how to spend your paycheck?
there are chemicals in cola syrup and ginger extract that help nausea, and flat is the way my parents grew up with it when they were sick, and that is how everybody I knew in wayne, monroe and livingston county NY that I chatted with as a kid.
What used to be done is keeping a small bottle of cola syrup in the bathroom, but in the absence of it, flat soda. I have actually found a source of cola syrup here in Connecticut [but the pharmacy has to order it, so we still go with flat.
MrAru also was given flat soda, his mom is from Craig MO, and father is from Bloomington CA. Not sure where that fits in the data points.