Big Food vs. Big Insurance

[groovedaddy]

TO listen to President Obama’s speech on Wednesday night, or to just about anyone else in the health care debate, you would think that the biggest problem with health care in America is the system itself — perverse incentives, inefficiencies, unnecessary tests and procedures, lack of competition, and greed.

No one disputes that the $2.3 trillion we devote to the health care industry is often spent unwisely, but the fact that the United States spends twice as much per person as most European countries on health care can be substantially explained, as a study released last month says, by our being fatter. Even the most efficient health care system that the administration could hope to devise would still confront a rising tide of chronic disease linked to diet.

That’s why our success in bringing health care costs under control ultimately depends on whether Washington can summon the political will to take on and reform a second, even more powerful industry: the food industry.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, three-quarters of health care spending now goes to treat “preventable chronic diseases.” Not all of these diseases are linked to diet — there’s smoking, for instance — but many, if not most, of them are.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/10/opinion/10pollan.html?th&emc=th

[Still Blue in PDX]

1. Again with the fat flagellation.

HFCS is everywhere you look, and gods know what else we're putting in our bodies. Part of the reason people make such unhealthy choices is because most of the choices are unhealthy.

The only solution is to cook your own food from scratch, and that's difficult when you're working 64 hours a week (like I am).

Just sayin'.

:popcorn: <-- unbuttered, unsalted, airpopped

[Big Blue Marble]

2. There is no real health care reform

until we starting reforming our diets. We need government financed education
programs in our schools and in our workplaces to help people make better
choices. People need to know there is an alternative to the corporate food pushers
and pimps whose only interest is the short-term dollars they take away from
the citizens of this country leaving us poorly fed.

Hopefully, Pollan is right and the health insurance industry will get on our side
because this even more than the current health care reform is the fight of our lives.

[Donnachaidh]

3. and when we start reforming our diets, the Agri Industrial Complex will

start humping Congressional legs and filling Congressional coffers to STOP any real reform. Just like the insurance companies are doing right now.

[Omnibus]

4. So what you're saying is, if we got corporations out of government...

...we could solve a lot of our problems?

Sounds like a good idea to me!

[groovedaddy]

5. Ending corporate/big money influence of government would be a huge step

in changing the direction we're headed (fascism).