Soda tax may be high but it’s nowhere near as pricey as the doctor
Feb 27, 2017, 6:50 AM
Can you learn to love a soda tax?
Philadelphia now has the first numbers on its new soda tax. The city was expecting to collect only $2 million in January. But when they released the final tally: It raised $5.7 million.
Related: Beverage association says Seattle soda tax would hurt businesses
Good for the city treasury, but NOT good for the grocers, whose customers would have to pay more than DOUBLE what they used to. That means, for example, if someone buys a 3 liter for $1.39, the tax is $1.53.
But here’s one of the big supporters of the tax – Dr. Kenneth Margulies, a cardiologist who teaches at the University of Pennsylvania. He’s sympathetic to the grocers, but not to the soda industry.
“If you saw somebody taking a glass of water and dumping in eight packets of sugar, you’d be pretty shocked,” Dr. Margulies said. “But that’s actually what’s engineered into each and every 12-ounce can.”
And as a cardiologist, he sees every day what sugar does.
“I can’t tell you how many people I see with advanced stages of cardiovascular disease and they definitely regret the choices they made earlier,” he said.
So, of course, I tried to interest him in my pet idea to help people understand what they’re drinking: If in a supermarket display you had to actually post a picture showing the number of packets of sugar in the products on the shelf, maybe that would make it clearer.
“Right, they know what’s in a packet of sugar, they know what’s in a teaspoon of sugar,” Dr. Margulies responded. “I think that’s a fine suggestion. And then they are still free to make their choice.”
That they are. And I would just observe that as high as Philadelphia’s soda tax may be – it doesn’t come close to what the cardiologist charges.
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