Make companies that profit from products that harm the body pay for the medical care and prevention that harm creates
In short
- Companies that sell clearly harmful products, such as tobacco, alcohol, and sugary drinks, must pay money.
- The amount they pay is based on what it costs to treat and prevent the diseases those products cause.
- The money collected is used only to prevent and treat those diseases.
- Companies that redesign a product to make it less harmful pay less.
- Scientists with no ties to the industry decide which products are covered.
If this comes true
In a clinic by the sea, a fisherman who was told he has diabetes goes every week, free of charge, to a cooking class taught by a dietitian hired with money collected from beverage companies.
Perhaps
A woman living on a pension, who buys one can of sweet coffee each day as her small pleasure, might buy less fruit at the greengrocer to make up for the higher price.
Water so far 💧 0
The proposal in detail
This proposal sets a principle: when a product is scientifically proven to increase disease even when used as intended, the companies that profit from selling it must cover part of the cost of treating and preventing that disease. Candidates include tobacco, alcohol, drinks high in sugar, and processed foods whose harm to the body has been confirmed. A committee of scientists who have never received funding or positions from the affected industries decides which products to include and how far, based on how strongly each is linked to disease, and publishes its reasons. The amount owed is the total of the medical costs of diseases estimated to be caused by the product, the support needed for people who can no longer work, and the cost of prevention, divided among companies according to how much each sells. The money is not mixed into general tax revenue. It may be used only for preventing and detecting those diseases early, treating them, and helping people recover from addiction. The companies that pay take no part in deciding how it is used. A company that redesigns its product to reduce harm, for example by cutting sugar or harmful ingredients, pays less in proportion to how much it has reduced the harm. Small local makers are exempt up to a certain sales volume, and traditional alcohol brewing is treated the same way. To stop companies from shifting sales to countries with looser rules, countries make an international agreement to use the same way of calculating the amounts, and countries with weak tax and sales systems receive technical support.
BenefitsThe cost of disease goes back to those who profited
This system corrects the gap between those who create disease and those who pay for it. When the cost of disease is added to the price of a product, buyers see a price closer to the real cost, and young people, who are especially sensitive to money, tend to buy less. For companies, the more they reduce harm, the lighter their burden, so they have a reason to develop drinks with less sugar and alcohol with a lower proof, and products change voluntarily more than they would under a ban. Because the money collected can be used only for prevention and treatment, plain but important work such as health checkups, support for quitting smoking or drinking, and nutrition counseling, which is often the first to be cut when the economy is weak or politics shift, gets a stable source of funding. When society pays for the treatment of people who have fallen ill, it makes sense that part of that money comes from the companies that caused the problem, so taxpayers are also more likely to accept it. Moreover, if countries use the same way of calculating, sales pushes aimed at countries with weak rules stop being worth the effort, which also helps protect people in places with little medical care.
DrawbacksA regressive burden that weighs most on people who struggle
The cost added to the price tends to be paid in the end by buyers, not companies, and the effect is heaviest on people with little money to spare. People with low incomes are often the ones who buy tobacco and sweet drinks most often, so they pay a bigger share of their money than wealthy people do for small daily pleasures and ways of easing hardship. While claiming to be for health, the system could end up collecting funds for medical care from the wallets of the poor. Also, when the state or experts decide what is bad for the body and change prices accordingly, it interferes with the freedom of adults to choose their own pleasures, and if it spreads to processed foods and sweets, people may feel suffocated by others telling them what to eat. Uncertainty remains about where to draw the line on harm, and a single decision by a committee can hit an industry hard. Farmers who grow tobacco or sugarcane, and small local shops, people who have staked their livelihoods on these products, might lose their work. Furthermore, if funding for medical care and prevention comes to depend on sales of harmful products, the system takes on a twisted dependence in which the more disease falls, the less money there is.
Learn the background
Chronic diseases that do not spread from person to person, such as heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and lung disease, now cause most deaths in the world. Among their causes are products that companies sell and build demand for through advertising, such as tobacco, alcohol, and sugary drinks. Yet the costs after people get sick are paid by the patients and their families, who have to come up with the money for treatment, and by society as a whole, which supports health care through taxes and insurance premiums. Profits go to the sellers, while losses fall on the buyers and the public, a completely lopsided arrangement. When sales stop growing in wealthy countries, advertising aimed at countries with weak rules and at young people grows stronger, and disease is increasing most in places where medical care is hardest to reach. Many countries tax tobacco and alcohol, but that revenue dissolves into the general budget and barely reaches efforts to prevent disease. In the environmental field, the idea that a company that pollutes a river should clean it up is spreading, but for products that damage people's bodies, the line of responsibility has not yet been drawn.
Choose them ready to accept their drawbacks too (up to 5)
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This proposal was written in Japanese by AI (claude-opus-5-5, policy version 2026-10-20b) and translated by AI (claude-sonnet-5-5). Nobody has checked the facts. Read the original (日本語) How the AI writes