By Diana Furchtgott-Roth
It’s bad enough that the Affordable Care Act is raising premiums and deductibles—and perhaps lowering your tax refund. In addition, the ACA has given the Food and Drug Administration the power to go after your favorite vending machine. By the end of next year, according to a new FDA rule, most snack machines must have calorie counts prominently displayed, or risk removal.
Any sort of vending machines, from mixed nut machines to gumball machines, are subject to this new rule, if the operator owns twenty or more machines. The calorie declarations must be clear, conspicuous, and placed prominently on a sign in, on, or adjacent to the vending machine.
This rule would not only cost the FDA millions of dollars to implement, money that could be better spent on speeding new drugs to market or returned to the taxpayer, but it could drive many small vending machine companies out of business with little real benefit to consumers.
While the FDA claims that this new regulation will lower health care costs, it also concedes that it has “not estimated the actual benefits associated with proposed requirements.” In other words, no study was conducted or true consumer behavior tested. The regulation simply assumes that, given more information, consumers would choose to eat less, and obesity would decline.
The FDA claims that the regulation will decrease healthcare costs by $7.5 billion over the next 20 years. The supposed benefit of these assumed lower obesity levels would be healthier Americans, who would need fewer visits to the doctor and diminished spending for Medicare and Medicaid. But, before implementing a program that will have a definite effect on small businesses, it should have at least attempted to empirically find out whether the regulation will be effective.
Studies have shown that displaying calories in restaurants does not affect the calorie intake of customers. After a 2008 law mandating the display of calorie counts in chain restaurants was implemented in New York, calorie intake did not decrease, according to a joint study led by Julie Downs of Carnegie Mellon in 2012.
While the benefit of this program is dubious, expected annual spending on governmental door-to-door compliance checks is estimated to be $38 million a year over twenty years. By 2036, this program will have cost the government over $400 million.
The cost to the vending machine industry is similarly high...
OMG, Bastiat is spinning!!
ReplyDeleteAnd where did they get those numbers?? Can I smoke some of what they're smokin' too??
The most high in the oval office will likely "intercept" you if you try to smoke what they are smoking.
DeleteDestroying an economy one regulation at a time.
ReplyDelete