Where the Nanny Statists Begin, the Trial Lawyers Surely Follow

I've written more than once about the so-called "Happy Meals ban." Well, it's got legs.  This nonsense bagan last spring in San Mateo County.  The notion is that if the government forbids  fast-food restaurants from using toys and similar items to induce kids to order meals there, childhood obesity will fall.  As I anticipated at the time, this will likely become a windfall for trial lawyers.

San Francisco Bans Toys in Restaurant Meals

In a purported attempt to reduce childhood obesity, San Francisco's Board of Supervisors has voted to ban toys and similar inducements that restaurants use to promote kids' menus.

This is the result of lobbying by the city's bloated and ambitious public-health bureaucracy, and a completely wrong-headed investment of political energy, as I wrote in the local newspaper back in September, when the ban was first proposed.

San Francisco's Fast-Food Toy-Ban Good for Bureaucracy, Not Waistlines

A few weeks ago, Santa Clara County passed a measure intended to reduce child obesity by fining restaurants for offering toys as part of meal promotions. San Francisco has responded with a similar measure that won’t help the kids slim down, but is guaranteed to fatten up already-bloated government.

The real force behind this legislation is the Public Health Department, which has been growing for the past three years, fueled by the Healthy San Francisco program. This program taxes small businesses, primarily restaurants and retailers, that can’t afford to offer health benefits.

The public health bureaucracy devoured $36 million of these taxes, for fiscal year 2008-09, while spending only $11 million reimbursing medical providers and pharmacies. The rest went to nonmedical spending, including $8 million on salary and benefits for new bureaucratic positions.

Read my entire column at the San Francisco Examiner.

Whis is More Obese, San Francisco's Kids, or its Government?

Imagine this scene a year or two in our future: An inspector from the San Francisco Department of Public Health spots something shiny behind a restaurant freezer. He pulls out a plastic Iron Man™ action figure, which the manager claims belongs to his son. No dice – they haul him downtown for using toys to lure kids into his restaurant.

If Supervisors Eric Mar, David Campos, and David Chiu have their way, this embarrassing spectacle of political overreach will become reality. Their stated goal is to reduce childhood obesity, but will it work?

Read more in this month's Capital Ideas.

Healthy San Francisco's Job-Killing Taxes to Live On

The U.S. Supreme Court has denied the Golden Gate Restaurant Association’s appeal of a 9th Circuit decision that permits San Francisco to levy a punitive tax on businesses to fund its public-health bureaucracy.

I’ve previously challenged research produced at UC Berkeley, which concluded that the ordinance did not cost jobs. Plus, I’ve noted the job-killing effects of the Healthy San Francisco program in a series of blog-entries (here, here, and here).

The GGRA had argued that the city ordinance violated ERISA, the federal law that regulates job-based benefits. But that is all water under the bridge. Kathleen Sebelius, U.S. Secretary of Health & Human Services has formed a (small and exclusive) mutual admiration society for government-run health care with Gavin Newsom, Mayor of San Francisco, so this decision will surely be welcomed by her and all ObamaCare-backers.

Does this judicial failure to overturn a mandate in San Francisco allow us to handicap the success of the lawsuits against ObamaCare’s national mandate? Unlikely: The San Francisco lawsuit relied on a federal law, ERISA, whereas the anti-ObamaCare lawsuits rely on the U.S. Constitution.

Plus, ERISA is not really a very effective law, as I’ve written about previously. Strategically, it’s a weak foundation to rely upon, for those who advocate individual choice in health care.

San Francisco's Employer Health Tax: Change We Can Do Without

San Francisco's job-killing tax on employers to fund the public-health bureaucracy has garnered some scholarly support, which I rouse myself to challenge in this month's Capital Ideas.

Graham versus Pelosi on CBS San Francisco Local News

Speaker Pelosi says that "this is about money, lots of money....." No kidding! Do you think she can bear to keep her hands off it?

"Healthy San Francisco" is No Model for Health Reform

Mayor Newsom touts his tax-hiking public-health bureaucracy as a model for national health reform. I managed to get a contrary opinion deep into opposition territory - the opinion page of the San Francico Chronicle.

America Beware: Healthy San Francisco's Tax Hikes May Be Coming Your Way

This month's Capital Ideas.

Healthy San Francisco a Model for U.S.: Sebelius, Obama

The Sacramento Bee reports that U.S. Health & Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and President Obama have praised Mayor Gavin Newsom's Healthy San Francisco municipal bureaucracy as a model of U.S. health reform.

What part of "government failure" don't these folks understand? Healthy San Francisco is a tax-hike levied in accord with the gospel of the Church of Universal Coverage (as defined by Cato's Michael Cannon). It taxes small businesses (mostly restaurants) to fund the county's public-health bureaucracy, and declares that it is "covering" all San Franciscans.

I have written about it's tax-hiking ways before, and noted that it has failed to attract private hospitals and physicians to accept its "coverage." Healthy San Francisco claims that its members are enrolled in medical homes. I took a gander at its website, and saw that it has added a grand total of two private providers to its "network" of public-health centers and community clinics.

However, one private provider is the Sr. Mary Philippa Health Center, the charity wing of St. Mary's Medical Center (which is part of the mega-system Catholic Healthcare West). It's a fine center for poor people, no doubt, but I believe that non-profit hospitals affiliated with communities of faith have been doing this long before the Mayor of San Francisco got involved.

The second private provider is the Chinese Community Health Association, undoubtedly a similarly motivated organization.

Noticeably absent from "The Care Network" are any mainstream hospitals or physician practices.

High taxes and limited choice: Is this the future of U.S. health care?

Healthy San Francisco Ready to Raise Taxes Again

I've written a lot about San Francisco's Healthy Access Plan, the employer "pay or play" mandate that hikes taxes on small businesses to fund San Francisco's public-health bureaucracy. The Golden Gate Restaurant Association, which has been leading the legal fight for relief from this excessive tax, has just suffered another setback. An 11-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeal has refused to overturn a ruling that the San Francisco health-tax was legitimate.

It's perfect timing for the money-hungry bosses at City Hall: On February 10, the mandate expanded to cover employees earning up to $106,000 annually, per household. But the health-tax barely begins to cover the costs of this program: It's only raised $35 million since January 2008, while it costs $170 million annually - over $5,000 per enrollee. Despite this cost, SF HAP has failed to attract any significant participation by providers: 55% of beneficiaries have "medical homes" directly at the Department of Public Health and 43% are enrolled with members of the San Francisco Community Clinic Consortium.

Sorry, San Francisco: A tax hike to expand the public-health buraucracy is not universal access to health care.