A few days back TDA reader Norm sent me an article about UK insurers raising life insurance rates on people who exceed the recommended alcohol limit. Now in the ping pong match that is my cognitive process I moved quickly from this story to New York’s proposed obesity tax, then to California’s alcohol tax (still much smaller than originally proposed), but the volley stopped at our President-elect’s proposed universal health care (UHC).

The ball came off the table at UHC because at this point I (and you) become responsible for the foreseeable consequences of other people’s voluntary health risks. Avoid the fat tax, don’t drink soda. Keep away from the alcohol tax, eschew beer. With UHC however, there will be no avoiding paying for the wino’s new liver and the smoker’s lung regardless of how healthy we live our own lives. But never fear, surely the government will come to our aid to reduce taxes by implementing a public awareness blitz, a new temperance movement.

Sounds like a TDA dream right? Not.

Click “Read more” to continue…

Movements like this are hard to stop, take the organization and enforcement ability of the government and combine it with today’s pervasive healthcare technology… and prohibition may be closer than you think.

Only this prohibition might go much further than just alcohol because it’s a wired world these days; UHC could go so far beyond Hillarycare it’s scary. In the old days a pledge card like the one above was the feeble reach of accountability, now current wireless and sensing technology enable real time monitoring of key physical parameters and body chemistry variables. Thinking along these lines it doesn’t take a prognosticator to see how government run healthcare would become not only pervasive, but perverted.

Cigarettes, marijuana, and all illicit drugs would be the first to be monitored and taxed- it’s called lifestyle incentive management. Next would be junk food and “unhealthy proportions”. All of these I’ve mentioned so far the government already has or is attempting to either ban or tax so we are not talking about much of a stretch. How about forcing people to exercise? If you neglected reaching your target heart rate three times a week then the penalty of being bumped up a tax bracket might actually have the same effect.

I’ll be the first to speak on behalf of a new temperance movement, but I’m keeping a tinfoil hat handy just in case UHC and pervasive healthcare technology spark a neo-prohibition.