A Fat Tax for America? 向胖人徵稅？

英語學習點: Fines Vocabulary and Conditionals 有關罰款的辭彙和條件句

The proposal aims to encourage people to be healthy.

If a new idea in America becomes a law, people who suffer from obesity could suffer financially too.

The US state of Arizona wants to charge overweight citizens $50 (325 Yuan) annually if they fail to follow their doctors" advice. People with children or who are overweight because they suffer from a medical condition would be exempt.

If the idea is approved by Congress, smokers and diabetics who fail to stick to a healthy lifestyle will also have to pay.Medicaid, the organisation which provides healthcare to the poor in the USA, costs the government $339bn (2.2 trillion Yuan) a year. Monica Coury, assistant director at Arizona"s Medicaid programme, said that this proposal would ask people to give something back.

She said that Arizona would take a carrot and stick approach to the problem. As well as penalising people who go against their doctor"s wishes, incentives would be offered for following advice, possibly a keep-fit video.Arizona"s senator Kyrsten Sinema has not backed the plans, saying that there isn"t a system to decide whether someone is or isn"t following medical advice. Other critics claim that people don"t need the government to look after them; if they want to be fat and smoke, the "nanny state" shouldn"t try to stop them. Wes Benedict of the Libertarian Party said:"If you want to save the state money... cut Medicaid across the board, but don"t single out overweight people and smokers."

Glossary 辭彙表 (收聽發音, 請單擊英語單詞)

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