Sugar daddy: when the State gets involved in health care
Why are Mayor Bloomberg and NYC trying to regulate what people can and can’t drink? Why do they think they have the right to regulate details of people’s sugar intake? Why can they make such decisions for people?
Answer: because he people said they can.
Despite the outcry about the “nanny state” over the proposed ban on sugary beverages over 16oz in restaurants, etc., the fact that the people have been quite accepting and even defending of putting the State in charge of public health—restaurants, retail, food production and services, business, and a myriad of other things—says that the people want the government in control of their health and food decisions.
The fact that they tolerate this is general says more than the whining over a specific measure.
The ban on large cups for sugary drinks is not the nanny state run amok, it is the logical conclusion of the nanny state. It should have long since been expected.
A lot of people have focused on Bloomberg’s comments yesterday, as RealClearPolitics.com relates: “We’re simply forcing you to understand that you have to make the conscious decision to go from one cup to another cup.”
But few have noted the real reasoning behind this is not the elitism displayed in such a comment, but rather the fact that State is now so intimately involved in personal health. The problem is rising obesity which will cost the State-run health programs billions if not controlled. Since people cannot seem to control it themselves, it will be up to the State which is footing the bill.
Bloomberg says this himself earlier in the interview. The measure only applied in “those industries we regulate” already, and is related directly to the fact that obesity is now claiming almost as many lives as smoking.
And since people accept the State’s role in health and health care as legitimate, they really have asked for this seemingly ridiculous measure. Of course it’s the State’s business. We made it their business and we fight to keep it that way.
This is a portent. Just wait until Obamacare gets into full swing.