Surrendering Our Freedom

At least fifteen times over the past 5 years I have made the point about the link between responsibility and freedom.  In July of last year I wrote that experts often believe:  “when people are not taking responsibility, the responsibility should be taken away from them.”  Later that month I wrote:  “We surrender our freedom for the convenience of not having to deal with [problems].  Many Americans are letting the government, marketing machines, politicians, advocacy groups, and celebrities do their thinking for them.”

Almost one year ago I wrote about health insurance:  “in turning the responsibility of paying your doctor over to others results in having to follow their rules and sometimes fighting with insurance companies or Medicare to receive what you think is due.”  Two years before that I warned of a coming of the “fat tax” on sugary drinks and other items.

Now I find out that I was only partially right.  It’s not just government, marketing machines, politicians, advocacy groups, and celebrities.  We must also add in schools.

I’m not just talking about high schools banning certain foods from vending machines and the cafeteria.  According to the Newser website (with the story later picked up by major news agencies), one university in Oklahoma has been taking it a step further.  As of this year, “freshmen and transfer students at Oklahoma's Oral Roberts University have been told that Fitbits are now mandatory—and failure to log at least 10,000 steps per day will affect their grades.”  Previously, the university set physical fitness requirements for students requiring them to keep a journal to track their fitness points, but now they will use the “fitness-tracking device, which will send data directly to a university computer.”  Data collected will be used as part of their grade in a health and fitness class.  They claim the journal system was “inaccurate and time consuming.”  Apparently no one is protesting about a right to privacy because this is for the students’ health and wellbeing.

From bans or taxes on soft drinks to automatic data collection at college, how far away are we from automatic locks on freezer display doors when someone deemed too large tries to buy ice cream at the grocery store?  Whenever we don’t take responsibility for ourselves, there is no shortage of people ready to step in and make rules and restrictions for our own good.  And as technology advances it just becomes easier.

Fat Tax Warning

Two related articles appeared in the news last week.  One advised that the Affordable Care Act contained high penalties for smokers.  The second told of a proposal to fight obesity by shaming overweight people.  (That outrageous suggestion demonstrates some people's level of frustration and desperation to solve the problem.)  The relationship between smoking and obesity is hard to ignore.  Both behaviors cause personal health problems and lead to increased healthcare costs.  It seems reasonable to use the history of dealing with smoking to predict future possibilities regarding obesity.

Of course smoking was easier to attack because smokers were a minority and smoking can be irritating to others.  The issue of secondhand smoke affecting the health of children also made it an easy target.  The campaign began with increased cigarette taxes, restrictions on advertising and printed warning labels.  It then moved to legislated bans on smoking in most public places and to policies restricting smoking at work.  States won large legal settlements from tobacco companies, intended to be used for education.  Employers began charging smokers a higher health insurance premium.  It is not uncommon for others to look down on smokers, nagging or trying to shame them into quitting (usually unsuccessfully).  Shaming of smokers is not considered outrageous or objectionable, since we're only trying to help.

In light of that, consider the so-called obesity epidemic.  So far the approach has been comparatively mild.  Sports organizations and doctors encourage kids to get outside and play.  There are health warnings and education about the dangers of being overweight.  Food packaging must post nutritional information, but not yet warnings.  Companies provide opportunities, even facilities, for their employees, and sometimes their families, to work out or be more active.  Since these actions have not made a significant impact, governments stepped in with stricter regulations on school lunches and bans on trans fats.  Last fall New York City passed the controversial ban on large soft drinks.  There has been talk of special taxes on fast food to discourage consumption.  Where may this lead?

Following the smoking model and despite a specific prohibition in the current law, could the next step be health insurance premiums based on body mass index (BMI)?  Could life insurance premiums follow?  Could minors be prohibited from buying certain foods?  Will airlines charge based on the total weight of the luggage and passenger?  These changes may not be out of the question.  I recently read in my local newspaper an expert opinion that it's not fair for healthy people to subsidize the healthcare of those with unhealthy lifestyles.  Further, this CBS News report from two days ago on weight-loss myths concludes with the sentence:  "'The big issues in weight loss are how you change the food environment in order for people to make healthy choices,' such as limiting soda sizes or junk food marketing to children."  Changing the "food environment" sounds eerily similar to steps taken to reduce smoking.

This is a responsibility issue.  We expect to be able to live our lives relatively free of interference, free to make our own choices.  But once we expect the government or our employer to pay our doctor bills, our choices become a "public health issue" and they believe they have the right to tell us how to live.  They become judges of our behavior.  As I have often said, failures in the area of responsibility often lead directly to losses of freedom. A right to free or subsidized healthcare cancels some other rights.  We can’t have it both ways.

Added Note (2/13/2013):  A sugary drinks fee is being considered by the Hawaii Senate as "an important way to fight obesity."

Responsibility and Freedom

The so-called obesity epidemic is a case of Americans consistently failing to act with discipline in terms of what they eat and how much they eat.  Politicians and other advocates see Americans getting fatter and apparently taking no responsibility to improve the situation.  It was less than four weeks ago that I warned in Obesity Epidemic and the Food Police (May 14) about where this particular aspect of lack of responsibility would lead.  “If we don’t fix it ourselves, others will step in with their mandates, programs and artificial incentives, excusing this outside interference as being in the interest of public health.”  On February 3 in Blame the Sugar, I said, “If we don't step up and take responsibility for our behavioral failures and begin to make some changes, well-intentioned people will call for government action and our freedoms will slowly erode.”

For anyone who didn’t believe me, we now have the case of Michael Bloomberg, mayor of New York City, proposing to amend the city health code “to restrict sales of sugary soft drinks to no more than 16 ounces a cup in city restaurants, movie theaters, stadiums and arenas…” Further down in the same article it reminds us of the other food-related actions in New York City since 2003:  requiring restaurant chains to post calorie-counts on menus, banning trans-fats from restaurants and prepared foods and banning sugary beverages from vending machines in schools and city-owned buildings.  He also dropped whole milk from public school cafeterias.

This is what I mean by erosion of freedom.  Slowly and with the best of intentions the government reduces our choices, treating us like children.  Each step seems small and could easily go unnoticed as we continue our busy lives, but our complacency leads to more and more restrictions.  Meanwhile, nothing is really solved.