The real way to change health care.

Great article. More at the link.

Fat Head » Cheaper Health Care:

"...my proposals aren’t based on the theory that the best way to bring down health-care costs is to spend another trillion dollars or so. In fact, my proposals would actually save the taxpayers money.

...Here’s how the federal government can realize those savings:

* Stop telling us what to eat, and admit that the earlier attempts to tell us what to eat were a mistake.
* Stop subsidizing corn and other grains.

...For decades, the federal government has been employing people whose job is to tell us what they think we should eat. In addition to their salaries, taxpayers also pay for the dubious research they conduct and the mountains of literature they produce and distribute. I say “dubious” because the primary purpose of the current research seems to be to prove that their previous advice wasn’t actually wrong … which it was. We don’t need these people...

The taxpayers also foot the bill for billions of dollars in annual farm subsidies. These subsidies were enacted in the 1930s as a “temporary” solution to the price shocks and instability of the Great Depression - which apparently never actually ended. In our continuing efforts to lift ourselves out of the Great Depression, we now provide wealthy corporations like Archer Daniels Midland with subsidy payments...

...We require much more medical treatment than we should largely because the federal government told us what we should eat, and by gosh, we listened. As you already know if you’ve seen Fat Head or read Good Calories, Bad Calories, the only macronutrient we consume more of now than in previous generations is carbohydrates. (We’ve actually cut back on fat, especially men.)

This didn’t happen by accident. It was the result of a senate committee on nutrition, headed by George McGovern, who believed everyone should switch to a low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet to prevent heart disease. Plenty of researchers and scientists, including the head of the National Academy of Sciences, tried to tell the committee they were wrong - but McGovern knew he was right because his own doctor said so. (With that kind of authority backing you, it’s just a waste of time to wait for actual scientific proof.)

And so, with a big push from the McGovern committee, the FDA and the USDA, the low-fat, high-carb diet became the rage. We became a nation of fat-phobic grain and sugar eaters.

Meanwhile, the federal government made it cheaper for us to eat sugar and starch through massive grain subsidies. As the old farmer told the stars of King Corn, “You couldn’t make any money growing corn if not for the government payments.” Those government payments are the reason we feed cattle corn instead of letting them eat grass as nature intended. Subsidies are the reason high-fructose corn syrup is in half the products you’ll find in the grocery store, including bread. Dirt-cheap subsidized corn is the reason for Big Gulps and endless refills at the soda dispenser.

And here’s the happy result of all that government involvement in food and nutrition: Nearly one-fourth of all senior citizens have type II diabetes..."