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Public Health Laws

Peggy Yeh

Professor Hamman

Political Science 1

September 14, 2017

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Theres been a good amount of times when nationalists and states rights clashed in
America. Just the name, United States of America, it is indicated that the states will
independently govern, but are united under on nation. When the states are brought together
though, they should work together to be able to function as whole. There continues to be a lot of
inconsistencies on opinions regarding regulation and laws in these issues, and if they belong to
the states or national level; some of the widely discussed topics include same sex marriage, gun
control laws, and medical marijuana.

The two sides to the differing political viewpoint include the nationalists philosophy and
the states rights philosophy. Each side breaks up and interprets the intentions of the Constitution
differently, resulting in very extreme opposing opinions. On the nationalist point of view they
are proponents for a strong, single, highly active and unified national government with flexibility
on the powers and responsibilities. This means the national government would be the supreme
power. They even go as far as referencing the Constitutions intentions in the famous phrase,
We the People of the United States as a key reason for this point of view. On the other hand,
those who support the states rights side believe in the states rights coexisting with equality in
authority and supremacy between the nationalists. With the Tenth Amendment supporting their
philosophy, it states that powers not given to the national government will belong to the people
and the states. A key idea in the states rights is the idea of dual federalism. Even in instances
when the national government attempts to overpower the states, the states always find ways to
oppose and counter the national laws passed. This was displayed in 2010 when the Affordable
Care Act was passed through, but states refused to comply and passed laws to not be within the
limitations of the new law. It is instances like this that show how theres still a lot of
inconsistencies and uncertainty in the states against the national powers. Regardless of what
position I lean towards; in my own words, states rights refers to not the idea that all duties,
controls, regulation, supremacies, and so on belong to the states. It simply means that all the
powers granted and authority over issues will be shared equally between the national government
and the state government. This means theres no one side that is more powerful, they are evenly
divided within its own jurisdiction. The national government tends to operate in more of a larger
scale, while the states continue to oversee their own issues and concerns without any conflict of
interests because they are two distinctive divisions without any interconnecting levels.

Public health laws and regulations is an ever-present issue in our society today. Its hard
to simply determine exactly if the states or the federal government has jurisdiction over this
subject. In the American Journal of Public Healths entry, Implications of the Supplemental
Nutrition Assistance Program Tax Exemption on Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Taxes, Jennifer
Pomeranz discusses the problems with different levels of governments views on the tax
exemptions regarding the health of the public. Pomeranz discusses the ideas for solutions or
ways to approach the rising public health problems like diabetes in our current society. These
ideas include including a tax on the sugar-sweetened drinks, but another issue arises with this
solution. If taxes are to be made on the sugar-sweetened drinks, how would those who are on the
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food stamp program, or SNAP (which stands for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) be
included since they are currently immune from any state taxes? Theres a bit of discontinuity
between the state and the United States Department of Agriculture because they forbid those who
take part in the SNAP benefits to gather any sort of taxes from them, this would include the
category the sugar tax would be under, which is labeled as excise tax. Other commonly known
excise taxes would be like gasoline, tobacco, and alcohol. This is a massive issue because
previous research revealed that those who partake in SNAP (both children and adults) already
consume more sugar-sweetened beverages than other people who do not partake in the
programs benefits. All those buying the sugar-sweetened drinks under the program will be
protected from the tax because of already defined legislature. This excise tax was initially
proposed by legislators to help our nations increasing risk of health issues like diabetes and
obesity, but a key demographic cant legally be included in the changes. An obvious resolution
would just be to include sugary drinks under the non-eligible food category (such as alcohol) for
those purchasing foods through SNAP. However, theres a lot of overlap between States
opinions and approaches and the national government.

Different parts of the government have different approaches to solve this issue. On the
federal level, legislators have been attempting to protect SNAP participants ability to purchase
food leading all the way back to the 1970s when it was revealed that food purchases that were
made through food stamps caused a ridiculous spike in sales tax for them which took away the
participants buying control. A proposed tax exemption policy, made under the United States
Department of Agriculture (USDA) was made to help those under SNAP from paying any type
of taxes and if states were caught implicating their taxes they would be taken out of the program.
However, this caused states to counter and attempt to fight the new policies. Alabama attempted
to get this new law removed, but was unsuccessful. In this instance, state and federal go head-to-
head, but federals approach ended up winning. Although this policy sounds like a good idea, it
backfired when excise tax was to be made on sugar-sweetened beverages. States that believe the
policy made by USDA does not apply to sugar-sweetened drinks began to propose state taxes on
them. An example of this is Berkeley in California, who was actually the first to pass sugar-
sweetened drinks tax a couple years ago to help improve the public health. Since then six other
states have followed this example, making only seven total states that apply excise tax to sugary
beverages.

The USDA continues to protect the food stamp program partakers by protecting their
power to purchase on a federal level, while the states attempt to decipher the legal jargon in the
policy to find loopholes out of this tax exemption policy. This loophole included taxing items
such as the sugar sweetened drinks targeting the actual business. This means the tax is not
directly on the food stamp participants, but that doesnt mean they are not affected it by it. The
seven states who have used this loophole to outmaneuver the federal regulations now apply the
new excise tax onto the companies that either have sales, distribution, or production of any type
of sugar-sweetened drinks. Although there are legislators attempting to revise the SNAP policies
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to help resolve the health problem, it has been unsuccessful. State government continues to
increase excise tax strategically to help prevent consumers from consistently purchasing it. This
shows how each level of government has different approaches to resolutions, and varying issues
prioritized.

Taxes on sugar-sweetened drinks is not the only issue regarding public health that has
some discontinuity between the state and nation. In the Journal of Law, Medicine, and Ethics,
Preemption and the Obesity Epidemic: State and Local Menu Labeling Laws and the Nutrition
Labeling and Education Act, written by numerous authors including Lainie Rutkow, Jon
Vernick, James Hodge, and Stephen Teret, they discuss the public health issue of obesity and
how state and federal government have initiated policies to help the peoples health and diet
behaviors and lifestyle. State governments and more local ones have approached the issue of the
diabetes with solutions such as mandatory calorie labels at on menus at any restaurant. This kind
of solution possibly clashes with the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act (NLEA), created by
the federal government because they should have already prevented small local governments or
states from enacting more policies that should already be included or regulated by the NLEA.

The two governments continue to not be able to distinguish which sector has proper
jurisdiction over these issues, which causes an irregular, inconsistent presentation of health
regulations. The federal government advocates desire and promote a possible grand, strong,
single federal public health promotion law that will be enacted onto the entire nation will have a
more constant and uniform message to address public health problems instead of the
discrepancies between different states and the nation that are present today. States view public
health issues differently in different areas, for example specific communities with different
demographics require special attention on specific health problems that others would not care
for. In this sense, it would make more sense for local and state governments to have more
flexible powers to govern and create health policies as needed. States that continue to enact
required menu labeling possibly bumps heads with federal legislation because of the NLEA,
which doesnt include this regulation. Regardless of the differing opinions and legal policy
conflicts, states continue to attempt to push through for laws and regulations that cater to each
areas certain health concern. The policy enacted by state government that gets passed through
tends to trace back to small loopholes where the federal laws or acts enacted are weak or not
specific enough. For example, the city of New York has an unending lawsuit regarding its menu
label policies conflicting with the NLEA. The states continue to create and overcome the federal
laws, while the nationalists attempt to strengthen the weaker already enacted policies.

These two articles both show two different examples of ongoing issues in the public
health world in America. Even though they discuss two different topics, there is a lot of
similarity in the conflicts encountered by differing opinions between the states rights and the
federal regulations. This clash between them continues to be ongoing with each side proposing
ideas to counteract one another.
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Bibliography
Pomeranz, Jennifer L. 2015. "Implications of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program
Tax Exemption on Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Taxes." American Journal Of Public
Health 105, no. 11: 2191-2193. Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost
http://web.b.ebscohost.com.ezp.pasadena.edu/ehost/detail/detail?vid=2&sid=0cc5b7fe
-ff25-4fe8 d9538d3c3fa64d0%40sessionmgr102&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc
3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#AN=111994065&db=aph (accessed September 14, 2017).

Rutkow, Lainie, Jon S. Vernick, James G. Hodge, and Stephen P. Teret. 2008. "Preemption and
the Obesity Epidemic: State and Local Menu Labeling Laws and the Nutrition Labeling
and Education Act." Journal Of Law, Medicine & Ethics 36, no. 4: 772-789. Consumer
Health Complete - EBSCOhost, EBSCOhost http://web.a.ebscohost.com.ezp.pasadena.
edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=1&sid=502d5591-b54b-492e-ab3e-
ff6c0f3ac7e5%40sessionmgr4010 (accessed September 14, 2017).