Health care reform's tanning tax

[Nightfall]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/08/AR2010070804488.html

Learned about this one from my wife the other day. Though this article focuses on the 10% tax against tanning salon users supposedly being racist...

...since patrons of tanning salons are almost exclusively white, the tax will be almost entirely paid by white people and, therefore, violates their constitutional right to equal protection under the law.

I find it far more interesting (though completely expected, of course) that it offers a small glimpse of the inevitable controls on anything the feds deem too unhealthy. Goes hand in hand with our regression to socialized health care, and everybody paying for everybody else's medical costs. Scary to think about the extent this rationale can (and will) be used to control people's activities, all in the name of making socialized health care doable...

But the levy's supporters argued from the start that it had a dual purpose: to raise funds to cover some of the cost of extending health coverage to the uninsured and to discourage a habit that scientific studies have linked with increased risk of cancer.

[Tallpine]

Are they also going to start taxing sleeveless shirts, tank tops, shorts, and bikinis...? 

[Firethorn]

I'd argue that Tobacco and Alcohol signaled this far earlier.

Then there's the ban on Tetraethyllead, leaded paints, etc...  Then again, that actually affects other people's health.

Though the tax being racist is indeed new.  Mostly for being against the 'white majority', I've seen a number of articles about how menthol cigs are racist because blacks disproportionally like them.

[Monkeyleg]

...I've seen a number of articles about how menthol cigs are racist because blacks disproportionally like them.

Does that mean that Ebony magazine is racist because blacks disproportionately like it?

[Firethorn]

Does that mean that Ebony magazine is racist because blacks disproportionately like it?

Well, does Ebony magazine cause cancer?

The articles often read a bit like the AIDS conspiracy theoriests.  To read the articles menthol cigarettes were deliberately created to further exploit blacks more than just plain making more money.

There's a bit of chicken-egg here in that back in the day menthols were heavily advertised in black communities; but there's some evidence that the tobacco people noticed that black areas already liked them more, so it was an early form of targeted advertising.

The more reasonable people do note that there's not reason to believe that there would be less smoking by blacks if menthols didn't exist.

[BridgeRunner]

I'm waiting for them to start taxing exercise equipment, to cut down on the costs of sports-related injuries.  

They already heavily manual labor (along with, y'know, every other kind of work), which has lately been VERY successful in preventing work-related accidents.  Heck, if we're lucky we might see 25-30% unemployment in Michigan.  Just think of the all the work-related injuries that could be avoided!

I used to not be a racist, because I smoked menthol cigs.  Since I quit, I'm once again elitist scum, I guess.

[kgbsquirrel]

I'm waiting for them to start taxing exercise equipment, to cut down on the costs of sports-related injuries.  

Will that one go hand-in-hand with a tax against people with "elevated BMI's"? Taxed if you do, taxed if you don't. Catch 22, clause B.

[Perd Hapley]

Though the tax being racist is indeed new. 

I heard that angle a few months ago.  Glenn Beck, maybe?  Anyhow, to call it racist is a shrewd jab at the race-baiting left. Good call!

[Jamisjockey]

Are they also going to start taxing sleeveless shirts, tank tops, shorts, and bikinis...? 

Don't give 'em any ideas!

[HankB]

Does that mean that Ebony magazine is racist because blacks disproportionately like it?

By that logic, Obama is racist because blacks dispropotionately like him.

[longeyes]

What, no special tax on skin lighteners?

[Monkeyleg]

What, no special tax on skin lighteners?

There's not much point. The last person to use them to any great degree died months back.

[Jamisjockey]

What, no special tax on skin lighteners?

Do they cause cancer?


The real issue here is why the Health Care bill was so nefarious to begin with.  Once there is a National Interest in our "health care", they can insert themselves into any aspect of our lives and moderate how we live.  Surely it will mostly be through taxes at first, but expect it to become more and more direct as Obamacare takes full effect.