One good thing about mandatory coverage through Insurers . . .

[Freeper]

abumbyanyothername  Donating Member  (1000+ posts) Click to send private message to this author  Click to view this author's profile  Click to add this author to your buddy list  Click to add this author to your Ignore list      Thu Sep-10-09 04:51 PM
Original message
One good thing about mandatory coverage through Insurers . . .
   
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/10/opinion/10pollan.html...

<snip>

The moment these new rules take effect, health insurance companies will promptly discover they have a powerful interest in reducing rates of obesity and chronic diseases linked to diet. A patient with Type 2 diabetes incurs additional health care costs of more than $6,600 a year; over a lifetime, that can come to more than $400,000. Insurers will quickly figure out that every case of Type 2 diabetes they can prevent adds $400,000 to their bottom line. Suddenly, every can of soda or Happy Meal or chicken nugget on a school lunch menu will look like a threat to future profits.

When health insurers can no longer evade much of the cost of treating the collateral damage of the American diet, the movement to reform the food system — everything from farm policy to food marketing and school lunches — will acquire a powerful and wealthy ally, something it hasn’t really ever had before.

AGRIBUSINESS dominates the agriculture committees of Congress, and has swatted away most efforts at reform. But what happens when the health insurance industry realizes that our system of farm subsidies makes junk food cheap, and fresh produce dear, and thus contributes to obesity and Type 2 diabetes? It will promptly get involved in the fight over the farm bill — which is to say, the industry will begin buying seats on those agriculture committees and demanding that the next bill be written with the interests of the public health more firmly in mind.

In the same way much of the health insurance industry threw its weight behind the campaign against smoking, we can expect it to support, and perhaps even help pay for, public education efforts like New York City’s bold new ad campaign against drinking soda. At the moment, a federal campaign to discourage the consumption of sweetened soft drinks is a political nonstarter, but few things could do more to slow the rise of Type 2 diabetes among adolescents than to reduce their soda consumption, which represents 15 percent of their caloric intake.

<snip>

I especially wanted to include the two paragraphs following this from page 2 of this editorial, but I abide by DU's rules.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x6515731

So if we are forced to buy health insurance it can lead to even more meddling by the govt in our lives.

customerserviceguy  Donating Member  (1000+ posts) Click to send private message to this author  Click to view this author's profile  Click to add this author to your buddy list  Click to add this author to your Ignore list      Thu Sep-10-09 05:11 PM
Response to Original message
2. This seems like wishful thinking to me, sorry
   
Public health campaigns really don't reduce the incidence of smoking (I certainly wish they would), but most people are able to tune out a nanny's voice. The only things I've ever seen that have worked with smoking are either:

1) Substantial breakthroughs in treatment methods, such as the patch. I had hoped that Chantix would be one of them, but I sat around a table with a bunch of (still) smokers last weekend who told me about the awful psychological side effects it had.

2) Further reducing the number of places that people can smoke. I noticed a sizable dropoff in the rate of co-worker smokers when it was no longer allowed inside office buildings, and another one when it was no longer allowed in bars.

3) Dramatic increases in the price of cigarettes, especialy when onerous new taxes are first imposed. People do get used to them, so you have to step it up every few years.

Now, when you apply those methods to food, there are problems. #1 would be ideal, but until we get to the genetic level, I believe that every method of dealing with overeating medically has been tried. I remember my mother's diet pills, they were speed! Since then, other methods have proved to be either ineffective, or to have significant side effects.

Perhaps insurance companies would be willing to pay for gastric bypass or lap-band surgeries, but I don't think we've had enough people having had them for a long enough time to really evaluate the long term effects.

There's no way to do #2, even if you banned fast-food places (good luck!) you'd still have ways of cooking high-calorie, low-nutrition foods at home. If I've got a hankering for a cheeseburger, I don't need Mickey D to be my "pusher".

Number 3 is a possible option, if we figured out what to tax excessively to discourage, and people were not able to substitute other things, that might work. Perhaps a 200% tax on ground beef to subsidize organic produce might work, but again, if you've got that hankering...

In any case, healthier living just postpones the inevitable, and I don't really think insurance companies are really going to be wild about seeing the average age of their oldest group of insureds going from 65 to 75, that decade has a lot of non-fatal expenses that are as costly to treat over a decade as a person's final illness.

Hell why don't we just ration out food 3 times a day wouldn't that be easier to control the masses?
Is there any area in our lives that the libs don't want full control over?
They try to tell us what kind of car to drive, how big or small a house we can have, how much money we can make, make us buy health insurance, don't drink or smoke or get taxed, and now what we can eat.
 

Freedom is a concept totally lost on these loons.

[Carl]

It is the neverending law of unintended consequences.

[The Village Idiot]

3 times a day the government delivers food aid to every American.... 2 bowls for Party members and one for others.

All hail government.

[miskie]

Thats not whats going to happen - the healthy who choose not to carry insurance at all are going to cover for the risky - as is everyone else.

[JohnnyReb]

...and the newspaper headlines will be....

Bacon, now the drug of choice.

Illegal bacon sales up.

Gangs fight Bacon wars.

[SSG Snuggle Bunny]

...and the newspaper headlines will be....

Bacon, now the drug of choice.

Illegal bacon sales up.

Gangs fight Bacon wars.

I prefer:

Nosey Government Official Gets Punched In Nose

[AllosaursRus]

Hey, ya know what prick? I smoke because I ENJOY it, period! It's not up to you or anyone else to tell me what I can or cannot do! Think of it this way asshat, I'll die before I get my full benefits from your beloved Social Security pyramid scheme!

Anytime you butt nuggets pry yourselves into my private life, I'm going to be an asshole! As a matter of fact, "Toots" swears it's my middle name!

Now you dipshits want to do it with everything American. So much for freedom of choice, eh? Frikkin' DUmb SHits!

[AllosaursRus]

I prefer:

Nosey Government Official Gets Punched In Nose

Anyone who does this has my word, I'll do everything in my powewr to take care of your bond!

[BlueStateSaint]

Hey, ya know what prick? I smoke because I ENJOY it, period! It's not up to you or anyone else to tell me what I can or cannot do! Think of it this way asshat, I'll die before I get my full benefits from your beloved Social Security pyramid scheme!

Anytime you butt nuggets pry yourselves into my private life, I'm going to be an asshole! As a matter of fact, "Toots" swears it's my middle name!

Now you dipshits want to do it with everything American. So much for freedom of choice, eh? Frikkin' DUmb SHits!

While I'm personally anti-smoking--if my daughter tries it, I'll kill her (she's 23 months old next week, so I've got a lot of time yet)--I firmly respect the rights of each and every adult American to do whatever the deuce they want to with their own bodies.  I have told smokers that, who thought I was going to go off on them for smoking, in the past.  If you want to be an asshole, I'll provide cover fire for ya!