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Food's Role in the Health Care Crisis
We must address our food system if we want to reduce the increasing costs of health care. The health care reform debate can be divided into two major issues: increasing access and decreasing costs. On one hand, no reform is complete until we find a way to provide all Americans with adequate insurance coverage. But even after we insure all Americans, we must deal with rising medical costs that result from preventable illnesses.
The easy way to refer to health problems related to food is by pointing a finger at the obesity epidemic. Obesity directly bears the blame for 9% of all health care costs in the U.S. and the health care costs for the obese are rising faster than the costs of non-obese patients. However, blaming obesity is oversimplifying the problem: chronic, lifestyle-related illness can strike people of all sizes, fat or thin. The obese are more likely to suffer from these illnesses, but let’s not forget the true causes – poor diet, lack of physical activity, smoking, stress, and lack of sleep – that lead to many of the chronic diseases burdening our health care system. Furthermore, as recent CDC statistics show that the percent of Americans who engage in recreational physical activity is holding constant over time while obesity and diabetes rates rise (and smoking declines), it’s clear that our eating habits are getting worse.
The USDA recently partnered with Sesame Street to promote healthy eating. Secretary Vilsack, who revealed last year that he struggled with a weight problem as a child and deeply cares about childhood obesity, personally participated in the effort alongside Sesame Street characters Cookie Monster and Broccoli. But what is the impact of a small public health campaign when it’s up against $1.6 billion per year in food marketing aimed at children? The Sesame Street campaign is wonderful, but almost certainly doomed to failure. Public interest advertising campaigns will never be any match for junk food marketing, so politicians interested in promoting healthy eating should advocate for other tactics.
Another problem comes from the conflict of interest shows like Sesame Street face when promoting healthy food. As Sesame Street probably does not wish to lose its sponsorship by McDonalds, it might hesitate to partner with the USDA on any healthy eating programs that actually work. Sesame Street is not the only one with a conflict of interest: the USDA is simultaneously tasked with promoting American agricultural products and promoting healthy eating by Americans. Members of Congress also face a conflict of interest as passing any bill that limits the profitability of the junk food industry may result in their defeat in the next election. Perhaps that is why the standards controlling which foods are not allowed to be sold in schools have not been updated since 1978.
In addition to updating the rules governing which foods schools may not sell to reflect modern nutritional knowledge and public health needs, Congress must also address the budgetary pressures faced by school lunch programs. Because each meal contributes so little to cover the lunch program’s overhead costs, school lunch directors must sell as many meals as possible. That means that they must cater to children’s tastes; if corn dogs and French fries sell better than vegetable stir fry, the school has little choice but to serve corn dogs and French fries.
School lunch programs also lower their overhead by minimizing labor costs, serving ready-to-eat meals that require no cooking beyond reheating. The lunch ladies who cooked school lunches that adults remember from their childhood hardly exist anymore – and even if they did, many schools do not even have kitchens.
If we are to truly lower our health care costs and improve our own quality of life, we must do more than run PSAs and teach children about the food pyramid in health textbooks while serving them unhealthy foods in school cafeterias. The cliché “actions speak louder than words” is tragically true in this case, and a generation of children now faces a lifetime of diet-related diseases as a result. Reforming school lunch is an investment, not an expenditure, which will allow children to pay better attention in school once they are nourished with healthy meals, arm them with healthy eating habits for life, and give them the foundation for preventing diet-related illnesses later in life.
The most powerful nation on earth should surely have the wherewithal to provide its citizens with access to affordable health care, while at the same time promoting good health and healthy habits in its school cafeterias. Serving nourishing school lunches is not only a means of keeping health care costs down in the future, it is also a way to ensure the next generation will enjoy the best quality of life possible. To give them any less would be an abdication of our responsibility in caring for them.
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36 Comments so far
Show AllMany in our society are addicted to fat, sugar and salt. So much of our processed food is saturated with these three ingredients,which actually cause a dramatic rise in dopamine levels in the brain, exactly as cocaine does. Foods are infused with obscene levels of fat. sugar and salt, so people crave unhealthy foods and dont know why. This disasterous relationship with poor nutrition often begins at a very early age, with the happy meals, cracker and chip snacks, etc. and by the time kids are 4 years old, they are complete crap food junkies, remaining that way for the rest of their lives. This happens most often with the poor, as healthy organic fruits and veggies are expensive. Another example of corporate greed and its disasterous effect upon humans.
It takes fully one to two years for an adult to change his taste palate away from fat, sugar, salt and the chemicals they add to food.
Once you accomplish this you often find those old tastes revolting.
We must also focus on the fact that tens of millions of people are eating "stuff" that has no relation to food whatsoever.
Bizarre.
No kidding..when I am within 100' of a McDonalds I feel like I am going to barf from the odor, yet I see many people who are savoring the same odor.
I can personally attest to that.
It is now known that a reduced caloric intake greatly improves overall health. It seems that every system in the body works better if we stay 'lean and mean.' Children are pushed by endless commercials, starting at a very tender age, to consume junk food, some even substituting for healthy meals (as in sugary breakfast foods). Corporations feed off the health and addiction problems they cause. Think about it: one corporate product causes obesity, and another (often the same company) offers the cure (weight loss). It's a win-win scenario for the evil pigs and a lose-lose proposition for the rest of us.
As an elementary school teacher, I am always disheartened to hear the lunch menu. My students eat sugary cereal or muffins for breakfast then go on to have salty and greasy chicken nuggets or pizza for lunch. No wonder they all crash in the afternoon, making learning more difficult. I keep a supply of fruit and whole grain crackers in my class for snack time and pass them out to students who don't bring a snack from home. I wish I could give my snacks to everyone, because the cookies and pastries that are sent from home are just as bad as what is served at the cafeteria.
I have always struggled with weight and recognize - and fight against - the addictive qualities of junk food. I keep teaching about healthy choices, but when I am the only teacher in the building who does not give candy out as a "reward" it continues to be an uphill battle.
Keep fighting, Jill. We need a broad vision of health education that encompasses schools and the media.
Most of those cereals and muffins are made not only with corn but contain high-fructose corn syrup, which is almost certainly of the genetically modified variety. (Even though it isn't labeled as such).
I'd urge everyone to avoid gm corn as it's almost certainly toxic.
Additionally, there's now evidence that high-fructose corn syrup contains high levels of mercury!
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/
article/2009/01/26/AR2009012601831.html
I taught middle school for 30 years. The first ten of those 30 I was always sick. When I began to notice my lunch was a mixture of salt, fat, and sugar I began taking my lunch and stopped eating meat.
Maybe I'm not very bright in some ways. I assumed they would not give me something to eat that was poison. Now I'm a conspiracy nut. I think I see things very clearly. There are connections everywhere.
What's the difference between fruit and "whole grain crackers" and sugary cereals and muffins? It's all sugar in the end. Your body treats it the same way once it's broken down in the gut.
You're not doing your students any favors by giving them even more carbs. A sugar is a sugar is a sugar. If you want to snack up your students, try giving them fat/meat combinations so their insulin isn't going all over the place. You are contributing to their blood sugar problems pushing fruit and "whole grain" anything on them.
I don't eat cheese, but I believe a cheese stick probably has about 1 carb in it. Hard boiled eggs have 1 carb. A small piece of cooked chicken or beef doesn't have any carbs. Dill pickles have a lot of sodium, but they are better off with the sodium than the carbs in your sugar-laden fruit. The blood sugar swings aren't going to stop because you give them fruit or crackers. You are only exacerbating the problem. Grains aren't even fit for human consumption, so I would avoid ingesting those or passing them off on kids.
gnken
Very good article Jill. Im 54 and just got back from a weeks vacation that included a 100 mile "century" bicycle ride in Mahwah, NJ, followed by a 3 day 42 mile kayak paddle trip on New York's Erie Canal. I also call it the trail of comfort food. One evening when I was camping in Fonda, NY I walked across the Bridge to Fultonville and decided to have supper at a T A Truck Stop Restaurant. As well as truckers there were local folks. That part of NY State is very depressed due to loss of Manufacturing Jobs over the last 30 years. Incomes have diminished, and the population is older folks on fixed incomes. While I was ordering my dinner, I looked around and saw that just about everyone in the dining area ranged from slight to excessive overweight. One family in there 30's, husband, wife, (mid 30's and both fat, husband with over the belt stomach) 3 children ranging from I would guess age 8 to 14. The oldest one was chubby. He had on a T shirt which read: " I know Im Fat" on the front and "Fuck You" on the back. Fox News had a segment a year or so ago - with the subject Mcdonalds Under attack. One pundit said he will have his Big Mac and No Govt. policy will take it from me. It seems like lower income as well as lower education areas seem to show more obesity.
Everyone can't be a member of the elite and superior class unfortunately.
One problem with getting good food into school cafeterias has to do with food preparation. It is easier (and takes less work) to warm up food rather than to do the more complicated job of, say, washing, peeling, cooking properly, presenting the food attractively, and cleaning up after a more wholesome menu. Our cafeteria "farms out" one day a week the preparation of unhealthful pizza to a local chain. With school cutbacks, the lunch crew has been decimated and looks to easy ways of preparing meals for students.
Another problem has to do with purchasing food. Large food suppliers do not offer local produce. Instead, they offer five or ten pound cans of peas, for example, tasteless and lacking in nutrition. Fish sticks and chicken nuggets--only vaguely suggestive of the animals they originated from--get popped into ovens because they are cheap and easily obtained.
The point is, the problem of bad food in school cafeterias is connected with American lack of emphasis on spending in the public sector, not just with the influence of agribusiness on our eating habits. If lunch staff were not cut back to bare bones, if a dietician oversaw menus, if a little more were spent on buying fresh things and if local markets were tapped into, kids would be eating a lot better than what they are eating now. It takes investment in young people to make it happen.
Our food is larded with sugar (oops, almost a mixed meataphor).
All joking aside, yes, the lower classes (oops again: I mean those below the middle class income bracket) in this country are getting heavier, one of the reasons being that sugar, salt, and beer are relatively cheap.
In 1960, approximately 44% of the U.S. population was overweight, and by 2001, that percentage was 66%. As another poster mentions, this phenomenon has multiple causations, including the increased use of automobiles and the lack of sidewalks in new suburbs; it also includes stress eating; lack of sleep causes people to eat more, as was mentioned above, and people may be storing more fat because they subconsciously fear the future, which could very well bring famine or mass starvation resulting from poor agricultural and industrial practices. Obesity is linked to cancer, so Americans and others should keep their weight down, but they should also have access to the medical care that can help them do this.
Nothing wrong with beer, in moderation. Real beer, anyway.
How much do Americans like chicken wings? Or cheeseburgers? Or pork chops? Enough to lose their jobs? At Ford Motor Company, that’s exactly the question workers should be asking themselves. In early 2006, Ford announced massive layoffs. More than 30,000 North American Ford employees out of work.
One major factor: health care costs. Skyrocketing doctor bills, hospital bills, and prescription drug costs have driven up the sticker prices on Ford’s cars and trucks. The same problem is also hurting the bottom line at GM, Chrysler, and other American manufacturers.
Stop by any U.S. factory and you’ll see why. We are one out-of-shape country. One-third of Americans are now moderately overweight, and another third are obese. Every pound a worker gains pushes his or her cholesterol up about one point. Twenty pounds, 20 points. Fifty pounds, 50 points.
If American manufacturing aims to compete, it must regain its edge. And vegetarian diets could do the trick.
To counteract the cholesterol-raising effect of chicken wings and chili dogs, we take Lipitor. One tablet costs about three dollars. A year’s supply runs more than $1,000. Our national ponderousness has also brought unprecedented epidemics of diabetes and high blood pressure, which demand more drugs–two or three for diabetes, another two, three, or even four for hypertension. Ordinary Americans now spend a fortune on legal drugs, doctor visits, and tests.
It’s time to wake up and smell the crisis.
An economic analysis by a Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine [PCRM] research team, published in Preventive Medicine more than 10 years ago, predicted the effects of eating habits on health care costs. At that time, meaty diets were responsible for more than $60 billion in health care expenditures every year. Today’s figures would likely be double that number.
Many Americans are already breaking the meat habit to cut their cholesterol, lose weight, or build their stamina. An average meat-eater can trim 20 pounds or more by switching to a plant-based diet. Detailed medical studies have shown that, like nonsmokers, people who skip the meat course require fewer doctor visits, fewer operations, and fewer prescriptions.
[See Editorials: Spring 2006 issue of PCRM's Good Medicine Magazine, and Summer 2009 issue at PCRM.org.]
"Our national ponderousness has also brought unprecedented epidemics of diabetes and high blood pressure, which demand more drugs–two or three for diabetes, another two, three, or even four for hypertension. Ordinary Americans now spend a fortune on legal drugs, doctor visits, and tests."
In addition to these ills, add worn out joints - especially knees, hips, and ankles - and overstressed spines from carrying around too much weight. The cost of surgeries to correct these problems is astronomical.
q
When we talk about problems with diet we're really talking about ignorance. Folks do not know not only which foods to eat but also how to prepare them.
People tend to eat what they ate as children and it takes a lot of will power to turn your back on mom's kitchen.
q
I'm old, but when I was in Jr. High we had this quaint little class called Home Ec and we learned about food groups, portion size, efficient cooking, grocery shopping on a budget and how to balance a checkbook. We may have hated the idea as budding feminists but the lessons I learned stayed with me and I think have contributed to my overall health and well-being. Do classes like this still exist?
I agree, q, that ignorance is a great part of the problem, and I would even go so far as to say it's intentional.
(P.S. My mom was and is a great cook, still slim at 81.)
I took took Home Ec classes, but that was because I wanted an elective that fit into my schedule.
My mother was a great cook and my five brothers and I ate a home cooked dinner 6 nights a week. She made a pot of oatmeal and a loaf of toast daily and if we wanted something else, we had to get up and fix it ourselves. That wasn't a problems as I loved to cook and my brothers were in the boy scouts and cooking was not optional for them. We drank 1-2 gallons of milk daily; at least a two quarts of real juice daily + fresh fruit and 2 vegetables or a vegetable and salad with our dinner nightly. Soda and chips only were a once a week thing and dessert was served on Wednesday and Sunday only. My parents did not allow the TV on or us answering the phone during dinner. AND, get this, we kids had to wash and properly set the table for dinner! Can you imagine that? We all took turns hand washing the dishes after dinner. When we kids became older, we rotated the cooking dinner chores as mother did have a job outside the home. She once said, cooking is part of adults taking care of themselves, just as cleaning up your messes, washing your clothes and learning to care for the lawn or garden. We all do those things in our daily lives. Childhood for us was about learning, not being catered to.
Has far as home ec classes go; they mostly, [in the Atlanta area] have been rolled into "health classes". With the advent of "No Child Left Behind" and the emphasis being on tested, instead of actually learning the course work materials, a lot of things including music and art has gone by the wasteside. I do know that nutrition to some degree is incorporated into the science classes for the grade school kids.
It is well past time that the Junk food industry be treated in the same way as the Tobacco business...as they are both threats to public health.
Canadians are fat, too, but not nearly as fat as Americans, despite similar eating habits and lifestyle. Why? My guess is that a major factor is that USans consume nearly twice as many soft drinks (216 litres per person per year) as do Canadians (119 litres), plus soft drinks in the US are almost exclusively sweetened with HFCS, whereas in Canada many are still sweetened with sugar. HFCS should be banned.
Again, this is a complex phenomenon we are looking at; ignorance is part of the problem, but the best foods to eat are also the most expensive ones: real whole grain breads, fresh organic vegetables, and soy-based products. The economy makes people work longer hours, so fast food is gulped down between jobs by people with little time to cook in their two-low-income households.
We are "corn walking", and now it is GM corn. We seem to think we can foul our nest and get away with it. We can pour whatever crap we want into our pie hole with no consequence.
We can suck up a steady diet of violence and debauchery and think it doesn't affect us. But we are happily affected by
commercials encouraging us to be good consumers. The air we breathe is foul. The water we drink is foul. The very space we inhabit is teaming with microwaves and bad vibes. Our bodies are stressd out cesspools. But hey, better living through chemistry, right? The doctor knows best, right? Health care "debate"? More like health care debauchal. "Health insurance" really means insuring that the insurers get rich, and the people stay sick. Imagine if they had spent those lobbying millions on promoting whole foods....in your dreams! I'm gonna quote Michael Pollan's "In Defense of Food", seven words to live by..."Eat
Food (as opposed to food-like substances), not too much, mostly vegetables." Is that so hard?
No, Ms. Richardson, SCHOOL LUNCHS ARE NOT THE PROBLEM BY ANY STRETCH OF THE IMAGINATION. The parents and grandparents of these kids are the problem. Kids learn by doing and observation. Parents who do not feed their kids proper meals teach their kids what to eat and not eat. It is very hard to overcome a childhood of bad eating observation and habits.
As a licensed practicing dietitian, I am amazed and saddened by at all the junk parents give to their kids; junk food is often used to placate kids. Then there is the dinner in a bag in the SUV practice or the use of frozen TV dinners and ordering in pizza on a regular basis. Kids who think dilated juice beverages are the same as a 100% juice; some of these kids haven't a clue what to do with an apple, fresh orange or a handful of grapes. Kids who think bottled vegetable juice, french fried potatoes, blooming onions, potato chips or fried potato sticks is a vegetable. Then there is the fried cheese bites, cheese food slices or pudding cups, "dairy treats" which have almost no actual milk are a dairy serving! Not to mention the constant stream of donuts, toaster struedel, sugar-coated puffed up dry cereal and pop tarts that a lot of parents call breakfast; and that's assuming they even get breakfast. Collegues often tell of parents who come in and pay for the breakfast program so they wouldn't have to be bothered getting up 30 minutes earlier. Let's not forget the daily practice of dessert with all meals and the use of carbonated beverages and sugared powered drink mixes in place of water and milk [any kind of milk, soy, rice, goats, cow's, etc.]. Oh, I forgot, giving the kids a daily multi-vitamin pill or calcium pill to "fix" the bad eating habits!!!
No, Ms. Richardson, school lunches are not the problem; the problems started a long time before the kids ever hit the classroom door. Nutrition classes do help a bit, but cannot make up for what parents do or don't do at home.
Hey rockerbabe 1,
Yes, PARENTS are indeed part of the problem, but they are NOT to blame here. The federal government subsidises many of the junk food crops being pushed onto the market. When it is more expensive for a family to buy one fresh tomato than to buy two boxes of cereal made with four blends of sugar and some starch, the economics dictate that the parent buys what will feed the most mouths. They may know that it is not as healthy, but they also know that the feeling of fullness will quite the rumbles of a hungry stomach.
Since the mid fifties, the general public, especially the public schools, have been indoctrinated into believing they must TRUST the government. Not just for food information and safety, but in every aspect of our lives. The government set up daily calorie intake requirements and a food pyramid. People wanted to believe that this was based upon scientific study by the government, and that it all was for a safer and healthier citizen..... As you know, it was all BS. The government was basically putting out what agricultrual lobbyist told it to. Studies by the government were non-existant, and those by private industry were skewed so badly that nobody could mistake them for being "scientific".
School lunches ARE part of the problem, but only a small part. Schools no longer hire dieticians or cook on site in many areas. Microwaved frozen foods are the norm in a growing number of our public institutions, thus I'd submit that the school lucnh programs can not be totally exonerated. The parents ARE part of the problem too. But, the corporate controlled lies promulgated by the federal government over the years are, I believe, the base line reason for the failing health in this country (USA). just my opinion.
Rockerbabe 1: I share your professional frustrations. But Nobodyknown has the bigger picture. I'd like to enlarge it. The professional arm of the dietetics profession is also partly to blame. As a long time ADA member, I have been revolted by their pandering to the food industry and stopped paying dues when they published an article about the value of GMO foods and how dietitians are in the perfect position to explain this value to their clients. I once did not get a job in school food service because one of the dietitians interviewing me thought I was too anti-sugar, altho she never asked what I would want to do about it.
And we can never forget those agricultural subsidies to corn, wheat, soybeans, potatoes and CAFOs.
Peace to you. And keep putting the word out about whole foods and plant based diets. Someone will be listening.
If you think parents are bad, let's look at the medical profession. You are not typical.
Do pediatricians and family doctors take the time to learn about nutrition and do a thorough review diet choices with patients as part of routine care? I hear parents talk of advice they got from their doctors. It strikes me as scattershot and unsubstantiated much of the time. (No eggs, whites only, yolks only - different doctors give these different instructions for young children.) Part of the reason is financial. I do not think nutritional counselling by MDs has a billing code or else the reimbursment level is very low. Another part of the reason is the drugs and surgery mindset of the medical profession.
I recently had a relative in the hospital. All over the hospital were vending machines selling sugary sodas and candy, fatty and salty chips and other snacks, toxic products of industrial food chemists, stuff I would never touch. Why is this being offered in a "healing" institution? Why do hospitals give this stuff an unofficial seal of approval by selling it? Why don't they install water fountains and sell whole grain crackers?
Joe
Avoid the center of the store.
All the corn sugar farmers should be charged for America's health problems.
Junk? Don't buy it and don't eat it. If you see someone else doing it, ask why. Inform yourself about the government deals that reclassified HFCS and canola and palm oils as foods and how the CAFOs (concentrated animal feeding operations) are the real cause of climate change. Use 100% biodiesel fuel in your car. We are what we eat (and breathe).
INSURANCE DESTROYS ACCOUNTABILITY -- INSURANCE DESTROYS DEMOCRACY
Democracy is where no one is allowed to enrich himself upon your misery. But not so in capitalist medicine which allows those with a rich diet and pleasure filled lifestyle to destroy our healthcare system and our economy.
For those who walk into a fast food restaurant do it knowing full well that half of the calories they are about to eat will be pure fat. Comes now a democratic healthcare system to save the day:
(1) Those who eat a diet that is 25% or higher in fat must pay for all their medical expenses until all their savings have been exhausted.
(2) Those who have no medical expenses shall at the end of each year receive a check for $2,000.
(3) We give the medical industry over $8,000 each year for every man, woman and child in America. This must be reduced by half to equal the healthcare costs of other industrialized nations.
All valid points, but it's politics that is the main enemy of a single payer health care system. And it is that flaw that inflates health care costs and denies thousands the most rudimentary health care.
That first one is cold-blooded. The problem is that this kind of judgment is a slippery slope. What if my diet is 24.8% fat? What then? What about those of us who eat a low carb diet and have higher fat calories but have normal blood lipids, normal blood pressure, and BMI in the low normal range? What about us? Some of us actually don't buy the woo "science" behind the food guide "pyramid" and believe higher fat calories are more healthy than higher carb calories. What about us? Should we be denied care until we "get with the program" and start eating carbs? (BTW, there is only one way I'm going to eat more than 10 grams of carbs a day - with a loaded gun to my head.)
What about the runners and triathletes? I probably use more than my share of orthopedic services every year because of my sports injuries. Should I have to "spend my entire savings" before I'm allowed medical care because I participate in sports that injure me or cause my joints problems?
How about people who drive cars? They run the risk of being in a serious auto accident that could cripple them, causing medical bills for life. Should they
deplete their savings before being allowed hospital/clinic care?
How about people who engage in group sex? Depending on their practices, these people may be at higher risk for STDs. Should they be denied care until they shape up and go monogamous? Should people who don't use condoms be denied medical care?
How about the smokers? Should we just abandon them to the "personal savings depletion" plan too? What about pot smokers? Will they be exempt? The heroin users? The meth users?
I'm all for overhauling the food system (that Food Pyramid blasphemy is the first thing that needs to go, and most everybody should be cutting back on carbs and not fat, as far as I'm concerned).
But everybody in the country deserves medical care ANY TIME THEY NEED IT, no matter what their personal habits are.
Acting holier than thou and categorizing people's health care delivery based on their LIFESTYLE is wrong. We are already doing that - people right now don't have health care based on financial standing. How fair is that?
I don't care why somebody needs care - if they need it, they need it. It's none of my business what people are eating, drinking, smoking, or who they are screwing.
I don't care who they are - citizen, undocumented worker, students here on visas, tourists - if they are on American soil, they deserve care when they need it. End of story.
If you want to fight for better nutrition in the schools (low carb is actually healthier than high carb) and you want to help educate the masses about the effects of crappy diets, knock yourself out. But putting value judgments on who can and can't receive care based on lifestyle choices is wrong. Sooner or later, that slippery slope will end up at your door, and you'll be denied care for some reason. Good luck with that.
"The USDA recently partnered with Sesame Street to promote healthy eating"
That's as liberal as it gets. Liberalism defends evil's "right" to perpetrate evil, so instead of demanding an end to evil, liberals validate evil as a "worthy opponent", engaging in polite "public relations" counter offensives. This lesser evil is not much lesser at all, really. How many decades do liberals think "tiptoeing through the tulips" is going to work? My guess is they plan to continue until the "whole shithouse goes up in flames".
"The most powerful nation on earth should surely have the wherewithal to provide its citizens with access to affordable health care"
What makes the author think that a society that wants to be "king of the hill" at any/all cost, and achieves whatever dubious titles it achieves through fossil gluttony, is going to care about people's health? That's a particularly delusional patronizing of the wrong element. Instead, we should appeal to the good side of human nature for a change. Get a clue to the interconnections of things.
The author's basic point is sound, but the rhetoric is counterproductive. Why continue with broken rhetoric if your aim is true?
How was it that the media succeeded in making the word 'liberal' a dirty word? Self-righteous religious people who preach 'morality' do as much (or more) to perpetuate evil and darkness than any atheistic liberal. Such labeling is uncalled for, but it's probably only a matter of time before the word 'progressive' follows suit. Be glad for the liberals and progressives; they are the ones who fight to keep your air clean and mercury out of your drinking water.
Liberal IS a dirty word!
Liberals are happy with the status quo. They believe it's okay to have a wealth-holding class as long as that group "plays nice" and gives concessions to the proles every once in a while.
That's not productive for working towards an egalitarian society.
If you're not a leftist, you may as well be a republican. It's all the same b.s.
Yes, diet and cost control are critical. However, no reform is viable as long as private, profit-seeking insurance companies determine which care is appropriate and who gets covered. You state that "no reform is complete until we find a way to provide all Americans with adequate insurance coverage." Insurance companies are unnecessary middlemen that divert health care dollars away from health care and exclude unhealthy individuals.