Last week, Michael Pollan wrote a good op-ed in the New York TImes, Big Food vs. Big Insurance.
"We’re spending $147 billion to treat obesity, $116 billion to treat diabetes, and hundreds of billions more to treat cardiovascular disease and the many types of cancer that have been linked to the so-called Western diet. One recent study estimated that 30 percent of the increase in health care spending over the past 20 years could be attributed to the soaring rate of obesity, a condition that now accounts for nearly a tenth of all spending on health care.
The American way of eating has become the elephant in the room in the debate over health care. The president has made a few notable allusions to it, and, by planting her vegetable garden on the South Lawn, Michelle Obama has tried to focus our attention on it. Just last month, Mr. Obama talked about putting a farmers’ market in front of the White House, and building new distribution networks to connect local farmers to public schools so that student lunches might offer more fresh produce and fewer Tater Tots. He’s even floated the idea of taxing soda.
But so far, food system reform has not figured in the national conversation about health care reform. And so the government is poised to go on encouraging America’s fast-food diet with its farm policies even as it takes on added responsibilities for covering the medical costs of that diet. To put it more bluntly, the government is putting itself in the uncomfortable position of subsidizing both the costs of treating Type 2 diabetes and the consumption of high-fructose corn syrup."
1 comment:
Politically speaking, Obama risks being "Carterized" (think sweater speech) if he starts talking about eating your veggies, and farmers markets. This would be just another nail the Repubs could and would use to finish the coffin they wish to make for healthcare reform. Although I do kinda like the idea of taxing Soda the proceeds should be used to fund water flouridation and nationwide dental insurance.
If, in 1978, as a nation, we had taken Carter seriously about reforming our energy system, then I posit that we would not have had a military presence in Saudi Arabia to protect our oil interests there, ergo, there would not have been an attack on 9/11, as such, we would not have gone to war in Iraq or Afghanistan, and lastly, we would not be facing the perils of global warming to the extent we are now.
Just thank Ronald Reagan for showing us the way to a better future for America by dismantling the Solar Panels on the roof of the White House, which Carter had put there.
Just the same way that America and its leaders could not see the problems that dependence on foreign oil would produce (some foreseeable, some not), the majority of Americans now (and it seems their elected leaders as well) can't see the problems which will unfold in the coming decades if we do not start to better manage healthcare costs and availability immediately.
It is really unfortunate that the President cannot speak to school children about studying hard, or ask the citizenry of our country to consider the health implications of their dietary choices, without having to worry about how the opposition party will use such messages against him.
So it goes.
TT
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