The Bloomberg Big Gulp ban idea was the worst of all options for paternalistic public health policy. It was maximally paternalistic, since it straight up took away the choice to buy a huge soda, and it wasn’t even going to bring in money for useful public services.
There’s some disagreement among researchers as to how much soda taxes depress soda consumption, but that’s fine because the main reason to tax soda is to get the money. Ideally it would get spent on public health programs, but it doesn’t have to. The broader point is that it’s a less-bad thing to tax than useful stuff like work and investment.
New yorkers are taxed enough. If a person wants a big sods let them have a big soda bloomberg should worry about other things than running every aspect of everyones life
People who make unhealthy choices should pay more taxes for health care than those who don’t
Or the government could leave us alone altogether. Let fat people drink/eat what they want and pay their own damn dr bills