A brief response to Jill Richardson's Excellent Diary, "You Can't Fix Healthcare Without Fixing Obesity."
I apprecaite Jill's diary, as it's one of the few diaries that actually discusses the substantial portion of health care policy -- how we care for people. Single Payer is all well and good, and I understand that we need to focus, but it's more important that we discuss WHAT health care we are providing.
People love to fixate on expensive treatments of heart disease (stints, for example), the latest radiation or diagnostic technology, etc., but nobody wants to talk about the less glamorous fact that expensive treatments, while miraculous, mean squat when compared to the prevention of easily preventable disease.
As Jill points out, obesity is widespread and causes most of the problems a nurse or doctor deals with on a given day (and is closely tied with diabetes). She doesn't say this exactly, but it's worth noting that passing a "government nutrition policy" (which would largely alleviate obesity) is MUCH easier to pass than anything with the phrase "health care" or "insurance" in it (i.e. single payer). Yet this would hugely reduce health care costs without any significant change in how insurance is provided -- again, without stepping on anyone's toes.
However, the issue of prevention goes deeper. What causes the majority of our health problems, really? Car accidents account for 40k deaths and millions of injuries EACH YEAR. Air pollution leads to asthma. Use of pharmaceuticals, including over the counter painkillers leads to chronic problems and ODs (Acetaminophen overdoses alone send an estimated 56,000 people to the emergency room each year, according to the FDA). It's likely toxins in many of the products we use (e.g. plastic bottles) account for myriad other health problems.
I'm not trying to be alarmist, but to illustrate just what's costing us so much goddamned money. The question is, what of this is preventable? What if we could replace cars in large cities with bike sharing and better public transit? What if we were more prudent in releasing new pharmaceuticals, or really, any new product? What if we provided better meal and gardening programs in ALL schools?
There's a lot of research to be done. But when, say, public transit is being discussed, how often do you hear the phrase "health care?" Never? I thought so. We need to start focusing the easiest solutions to our health care crissi.