The most interesting piece to be written about the President’s speech and health reform can be found in yesterday’s New York Times.
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.
The piece, in other words, doesn’t weigh in on the public option, Medicare reform, or tighter regulations for the insurance industry. Michael Pollan, author of In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto, mulls the link between America’s poor diet and its expensive health care.
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.
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…
There are, of course, numerous reasons for this epidemic. Let’s start with one that doesn’t quite involve the lobbyist-Washington-agribusiness connection: Americans eat more than they should.
But Mr. Pollan hits the nail on the head with his conclusion that big government (with big subsidies) has made the situation significantly worse: “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.”
As I’ve noted here before, too little of the debate about health-care reform has focused on bettering America’s health. Mr. Pollan is right to bring this up and right to focus on the subsidies.
9 responses so far
1 procha // Sep 11, 2009 at 2:56 pm
I’m positive that if health care reform will be focused on diet all the wingnuts will be screaming about the government trying to control what they are eating…and phrases like keep the government out of my kitchen , and hitler, and eating panels, so on so forth. Basically, it will be the same situation as with the current type of reform proposed.
2 Lloyd Alter // Sep 11, 2009 at 4:34 pm
I made exactly the same point on TreeHugger.com yesterday, quoting you. There is not much division on this issue.
3 Observer // Sep 12, 2009 at 10:18 am
Sure, Lloyd, but there is division on how to deal with it.
4 sinz54 // Sep 12, 2009 at 10:57 am
Agricultural subsidies are indefensible on many grounds, not just this health one.
They persist because of intense lobbying from farm states.
Even President Reagan, who was second to none in opposing the USSR, couldn’t stop exports of grain to the USSR. Because the farmers who voted for him wouldn’t allow it. So we continued to feed our most dangerous enemy.
5 sinz54 // Sep 12, 2009 at 11:01 am
There is a lot more that could be done at the state level about the obesity problem. Many schools–even elementary schools–strapped for funds, accept the placement of soft drink and candy vending machines on their premises in exchange for payments by those companies. Something like $200 million in payments from junk food companies have been made to schools in this way.
Every state should provide sufficient funding to buy up those contracts and stop the placement of junk food at school.
6 anotherdan // Sep 12, 2009 at 6:53 pm
The culture we live in is very fat. It’s not just government subsidies or the lack of government programs. I see a lot of people from Latin America come to the states (people I know personally) with in a few months they put on a lot of weight. As a culture we don’t take time to sit and make or eat good meals. We take the quick and cheap meal, not filling and full of calories. Remember weather you are conservative or liberal, Republican or Democrat, your probably fat.
7 raygun // Sep 13, 2009 at 10:15 am
It’s our right as American conservatives to eat as much as we want, and be as fat as we want. Government get out of my appetite.
8 Observer // Sep 13, 2009 at 2:43 pm
If it’s your right to be fat, then it’s also your right to be responsible and choose not to be.
9 sinz54 // Sep 14, 2009 at 1:26 pm
anotherdan:
It costs a lot more to eat healthy.
The cost of a balanced meal (fruit, vegetables, grains, lean meats) of 1,000 calories is MUCH higher than the cost of a Big Mac. Try pricing out a thousand-calorie meal that’s mostly fiber-based, the next time you’re in the supermarket.
Big Macs provide cheap food for the poor and working poor.
Obesity isn’t healthy. But it’s not as unhealthy as starvation, which used to be the natural condition of the poor in many parts of the country.
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