—Myca

—Myca

This was just a small example of that.

They’re both susceptible. It’s wise to restrain both of them.

As with workplace drug testing, I’ve never heard of workplace contraception requirements, or forced contraception, in places that have universal healthcare. That’s happening right there in the USA, where health is supposedly ‘free’ from such control freakery. Maybe it occurs in the UK in a more insidious way - eg. doctors in poor areas may be directing women to long-term solutions. It’s certainly possible. But it being required - as a direct restriction on freedom - isn’t something I’ve ever heard a whisper of.

I confess I hadn’t considered how that reproductive control might act in reverse until you mentioned it. All I’d met was the pressure to hand over money every month when every five years was doing me fine. (And I also hadn’t considered that my whiteness may have played into the ‘advice’ that I received).

But a tax, I’m not sure if that would accomplish anything anyway. The profit margin is fairly high with these drinks, including those dispensed in restaurants.

There’s been lots of abuses with the government’s involvement in birth control particuarly those that are longer-term like sterilization (usually permanent), Norplant( five years) and Depo (six months) with women of color including but not limited to American Indians, African-Americans and Latinas (especially those from Mexican and/or Puerto Rican ethnic backgrounds), women who are on public assistance, disabled women. Also for women working in certain industries who were forced to get hysterectomies, be sterilized or provide proof of effective birth control before holding certain jobs, often in towns with few job opportunities outside those industries. The latter are examples of private corporations attempts to control women’s bodies, because even though studies have shown that industrial contaminants and carcigens can negatively impact men’s sperm counts and health of sperm, the men in these jobs weren’t coerced or mandated to take the same measures as the women.

So I think there’s reason to be leery. I think it’s important for all women to be able to have access to abortion and contraception but not in a means to control reproduction by certain classes of women viewed by our society as being “undesirable”. The problem is, it’s just hard for the government to resist doing this.

Then there’s the matter of market freedom. Whatever else you may believe about the free market, good or bad, if US companies have to keep paying for their employees’ insurance, that places a distortion on said market - the company that covers least has the lowest overheads, so can reap the greatest profits. Does that distorting effect make the US more ‘free’ than countries with universal healthcare? I think not.

Oh, and I just thought of yet another example of US governmental interference into healthcare; abortion and sexual health. Do you seriously think that getting abortion and contraception with ease, for free or for a small prescription cost (iirc the pill costs $10 a month here, or free if you’re poor), makes you less free? Does having doctors that encourage you to use long-term contraception - because it’s cheaper for the system and more reliable for you - make you less free? (that’s one I’ve experienced personally; I’ve only seen a gyno in the USA once, and he actively misadvised me and tried to encourage me to use short-term instead of long-term contraception, even though the latter has fewer side-effects. Did that make me more ‘free’? Or was he, you know, angling to make a buck off me regularly instead of once every five years?)

It would be nonsense to say that there are no impositions placed on you by universal healthcare, but all the ones I can think of are about advice and advertising pressure rather than actual laws saying ‘don’t do this’. One that affects me is the anti-smoking advertising that’s common in the UK, but which I’ve yet to see in the US. The billboard campaigns are specifically designed to evoke disgust and fear over the effects of smoking. I’m sure it provides an impetus to quit for some smokers, which makes them stop poisoning themselves and the rest of us, but the 80% of us who don’t smoke have to put up with that ick-making imagery. Similarly, when I last had to sign up for a new GP I was given an anti-smoking leaflet even though I’d said I didn’t smoke; the receptionist was apologetic about this, and said she was required to give one to every new patient.

So, things like that happen (see also this new ‘traffic light’ food labelling idea) but I can’t think of any examples that involve more than just providing unsolicited information. No one is forcing people to stop smoking, or not get fat, or whatever. More of that goes on in the USA, as we’ve already covered. The worst that you get is annoying ad campaigns. I don’t think that makes anyone less ‘free’.

In fact, we can just as easily turn the same example into an argument for the other side. After all, if the concern is that universal health care could lead to this kind of imposition into our personal liberties . . . well, we’ve already got the imposition. We’re getting the imposition anyhow! It’s happening!

If we’ve already got the downside, shouldn’t we get the upside too? I want some damn healthcare now, thanks.

—Myca

Joe, we (well, I, anyway) understand your concern with governmental interference with your life (though I don’t understand your lack of concern about what will happen if you get seriously ill). But with something like single-payer healthcare, the benefits are so great that things like a soda tax seem trivial in comparison. C’mon — the link you posted calls the soda tax a “trojan horse for fascism”. Fascism???

Sure, concerns that the government might try to keep you from doing unhealthy but enjoyable things if we ever get single-payer healthcare are perfectly valid. But presenting a soda tax as the vanguard of fascism is, well, a scare tactic.

1. Soda is already heavily subsidized, through cheap corn syrup. Adding a tax on top of the subsidy is just leveling the playing field a little. Free-market types should be all for it.

2. The article is fatphobic, but the tax isn’t. The health detriments of soda range far beyond just its caloric content: there are plenty of good reasons not to consume it in excess.

3. As others have said, this doesn’t really have anything to do with government-run healthcare. That said, given the choice between getting bankrupted by an illness and then dying due to lack of care, or having to pay an extra nickel for a Coke…I’ll take the latter.

Scare tactic! Scare tactic! Scare tactic!

Once you take that into account, it all makes sense.

—Myca

I don’t think a trend for government-run-health-control-freakery exists. Look at all the public smoking bans in parts of the USA, which often include bans on smoking right outside a building. I couldn’t name anywhere but the USA where outdoor smoking is restricted in that way (though bans on smoking in enclosed public spaces are becoming common). Similarly anti-drinking laws and initiatives - another public health control issue - are far tighter in the USA than in most nations that have government-run healthcare (Norway being the only exception I can think of off the top of my head). Then there’s the war on drugs; the US government is very happy to tell you how to live your life in that regard, whereas countries with government-run healthcare are often far less intrusive about telling you what to put in your body. Even in the UK, which has a drug classification system defined by moral panic, workplace drug testing is virtually unknown outside professional sport.

Basically I see this story and read ‘San Fransisco is crazy’. How you’re getting ‘Government-funded healthcare is crazy’ from it, when SF doesn’t even have that, I have no idea.

The connection is that San Francisco is justifying the proposed tax by pointing out that it is paying the health care bills for this (alleged) wave of obese, diabetes-ridden patients.

He who pays the piper calls the tune. If the government is paying for your health care, the government will also be telling you how to live your life, health-wise. Taxing your snacks is just the camel’s nose. It will be extremely difficult to argue against coercive, freedom-destroying policies, when those policies are predicated on the eminently reasonable grounds that “we’re paying for the consequences of your choices, so we’re going to limit your choices to ones that don’t cost us a whole lot of money.”

Here’s an example.
http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/local&id=5841382

Found if from this blog.
http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/2007/12/government-heal.html