[wtbob]

> Cigarettes, alcohol, and junk food directly increase medical costs, and people who indulge (and over indulge) in those things should be partly responsible for those increased costs.

They also, of course, decrease other costs due to the deaths of the beneficiaries. Is that a net win or a net loss, financially speaking?

And are you so sure of your analysis that you would use violence to take your fellow citizens' money?

[Zungaron]

Are you really trotting out the tired old taxation equals violence argument?

[sctb]

We've asked you countless times not to post these ideological talking points here. We ban accounts that continue, so please stop.

[wtbob]

sctb, I honestly don't understand why you are threatening to ban me.

It's not an ideological talking point that people who die earlier due to health problems don't cost extra in pension funds. It's just a fact: if someone dies at 55, he won't cost a pension system which starts paying out at 65 a penny. fpgaminer posted much the same thing.

Nor, I think, was my aside about taxes being enforced with violence an ideological talking point: it's a fact that any law is ultimately enforced with violence. I honestly don't see how mentioning a social cost in the context of cost-benefit analyses could be considered a violation of any of the HN guidelines.

I'm not trying to derail or be argumentative; I'm honestly trying to understand how a fair moderator could threaten me with a ban for my comment.

[threeseed]

The scientists and public policy professionals who formulate these policies aren't doing this for a laugh. There are significant benefits to taxing things that make people sick.

And these policies have been pioneered in other countries e.g. Australia first where they have been wildly successful in reducing overall health care cost.

[wtbob]

I'm not arguing that they don't reduce health costs: I'm arguing that a) they increase other costs (e.g. old-age pensions, since people would live longer) and b) they are an unjust imposition of force in order to change private behaviour.