Overweight People Should Pay 'Fat Tax' To Cover Healthcare Costs, German MP Says

“‘The question must be admitted whether the immense costs that, for example, arise from excessive consumption of food, can be permanently paid out of the consolidated health system,’ said Marco Wanderwitz, the conservative MP for the state of Saxony. ‘I think it's sensible that people who knowingly live unhealthily carry a responsibility for it in a financial respect,’ said Mr Wanderwitz, who is also head of Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats's group of young parliamentarians. He was supported by Juergen Wasem, an economist who said foods like chocolate should carry health warnings. ‘As with tobacco, we should tax the purchase of unhealthy consumer goods at a higher rate and pay that tax into the health system,’ he said. Germany's health system is funded by...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/7904990/Overweight-people-should-pay-fat-tax-to-cover-healthcare-costs-German-MP-says.html