>> gMoney wrote: >> It's every American's right to lead a shitty lifestyle, and unfortunately >> many Americans take that option. All the taxes and warning labels and >> incentive plans have failed to stem that tide to date...it's reasonable to >> assume that trend will continue. >> > >Yeah, but we really don't have any decent incentives. how about this: > >Yearly tests that accompany physicals. High cholesterol? ZING! >Smoker? ZING! Fitness test score low? ZING! And I'm not talking >small hits, I'm talking big ones. > >That's not going to help with people that can't afford insurance, and >you really can't penalize them, but it would help the mainstream.
I'm not sure how effective that would be. Generally positive incentives work better than negative ones. Also most likely those you'd be trying to reach with this would avoid annual physicals, and end up only going for medical care when its an emergency. Sort of what a lot of people do now, only I imagine it would get far worse. As an alternative I'd look at taxing those products that are associated with the highest risk. Not just a one or two cent tax, but something like 75%. Also with each purchase the person signs a waiver giving up one day of medical care for every 16 ounces of corn syrup based (and similar) products. If they get proactive and start engaging in more positive behavior they get those days back (4 hours at a gym = 1 day of health care returned). Also there needs to be a lot more social marketing efforts designed to discourage people from using corn syrup based products etc. It worked pretty well for smoking (http://tinyurl.com/smokingChange), so why not with other equally dangerous behaviors. > >And you can tax junk food and soda while subsidizing organic local farmers. > >Not a magic bullet, but it would be a really nice part of a broader solution: > >(1.) Mandatory coverage. > >(2.) Catastrophic public coverage. > >(3.) Well regulated private insurance markets including providers! > >(4.) Access to portable group insurance outside of your employer > >(5.) Fiscal policy to incent desired behavior. > >We have to move from an emergency management system to a health care >system, and we have to leverage competition to keep supply-side costs >and finance costs at a minimum. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Want to reach the ColdFusion community with something they want? Let them know on the House of Fusion mailing lists Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/message.cfm/messageid:301776 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=11502.10531.5
