That's too costly. It would be easier for the government to send you an ID card listing the taxes you must pay for every item, with those tax amounts deduced from the medical bill for listed services your/their doctor sends them.

Using special scales will require retrofitting a lot of stores and does not address the other risky behaviors committed by citizens that we must blackmail into stopping with additional taxation.

No, no, no, just a chip such as is now installed in pets can be advanced to do data collection. That would work much better than scales, and besides, then your GPS coordinates could also be monitored by the Powers That Be.

Actually, in some ways, that would not be a bad idea, because among other things, it's not at all impossible that advances could be made so that cancer could be detected when it had no symptoms and the tumor was smaller than the head of a pin. At that point, a complete cure could be expected almost all of the time.

"Jon, I'm sure you can become as unhealthy as you wish and the government won't stop you. "

Is it unsafe to drive a car without a seatbelt? Is it unsafe to sit next to a smoker in a bar? How about dropping some LSD?

You are mixing safety with unhealthy. Safety concerns (seatbelts, smoking in public places) have ramifications in greater society through costs for care and, with smoking, harming others with the individual's actions. However, someone can still be unhealthy and smoke in their own home if they so choose.

Drug laws are in place largely due to continued efforts of alcohol lobbying along with lobbying from private, for-profit jails. You won't get an argument from me on that.

"Truth to Power"

Sounds more like parrots.

And conservatives used to think they were the party of personal responsibility. These days, they just want the right to do dumb things - destroy themselves, destroy their neighbors, and destroy the environment. The fact that conservatives are fighting for the right to not have health insurance (which would be irresponsible) shows they gave up on personal responsibility a long time ago.

Capitalism provides freedom to succeed (and fail), communism provide freedom from failure (and success), and conservatism provides freedom to do dumb things. And you wonder why conservatism only appeals to dumb people.

"having the government run healthcare means that the government essentially owns your body."

Really? Is that true in all of Europe? Canada? Australia? All of those governments own those peoples' bodies? Those governments tell people what they can and can't eat? Or what they can and can't smoke? Don't think so. Are they clamoring to get out of their countries and come here? Not so much anymore. You regressives are laughable. We're the only so-called modern first-world nation that doesn't have a national healthcare system. Why don't you try visiting other places?

There are no death panels.

Bloomberg is a Republican.

The ban on goose liver is due to the inhumane treatment of the animals. It has nothing to do with the healthiness or unhealthiness of foie gras.

The only claims to aromatherapy in California prisons are a Fox News video and some rightwing blogs. Personally, if aromatherapy helps keep the prisoners in a maximum security prison calmer and helps reduce violence on guards and other inmates, it is a good thing and saves taxpayers money from injuries.

Iron lungs? Really? If you have a doctor that thinks you should be in an iron lung, your worry is not about the cost of the medical device but about the incompetency of your doctor.

Tongue depressors are not considered medical devices.

Please stop posting nonsense and misinformation. It makes you look like a nutjob.