New York Soda Ban

Fat fucks are strongly correlated to poverty and poor education. Let's fix these issues.

Mandating health care isn't the issue, but allowing it to be easily accessible to all steps of the financial ladder is. Doctor bills aren't regulated by any agency as far as I know, so I'm sure there are plenty of doctors out there that are boning the insurance companies out of ALOT more money than the procedures they perform cost.

I'm not really the one to complain though, I know it's expensive keeping all those cops/firefighters/ambulances/federal agencies/food stamps/SSI paid off every year. Would be fucked to dial 911 and have the operator ask if you have a law enforcement insurance card otherwise they won't send anyone.

The real reason that healthcare in the US costs so much is litigation. Restrict civil cases against doctors, but protect the people through criminal law. Then the cost of healthcare will go down.

It doesn't seem like the answer to the obesity epidemic is to regulate an industry as to what they can sell and in what quantities. This is a slippery slope to the government regulating or rationing what you can consume. I think we all understand the concept of a social contract but that's not an excuse to restrict personal freedoms that may inflict self harm. In actuality we already do this with drugs and other freedoms, but I think that generally the idea there is that with those restricted freedoms one has a greater propensity to cause not only self harm but also harm to others. One can readily cite restricted freedoms that wouldn't cause much harm to others, while also citing freedoms that currently cause harm to others. I know it's not a perfect system as it's somewhat steeped in history and self-interest, but there it is. Besides, people with health problems already pay higher health care premiums, although that may have changed recently with the recent Health Reform - honestly I haven't been keeping pace with it.

I sort of wonder how exactly the bill is worded. If I owned a restaurant I would just cut the price of the beverage so that the customer, on average, is paying the same cost per volume.

In a lot of fast food places, you get free refills regardless of the size of the cup. Anytime I happen to find myself in such a place, I always get the smallest size.