weight loss and the government

This is not a political blog so I most certainly know that what I think about last night's election results is not pertinent to a blog about weight loss. What I will say is that I think over 99.9% of the people in the United States (me included) have not gone through thoroughly the thousands of pages that contain the new health care bill that the House and Senate have crafted that will impact on all of us in many ways. From the trillions of dollars it will cost to affecting your choice of who you can see and how long it may take to be seen, etc., this will have tremendous impact on the delivery of healthcare and before this is signed sealed and delivered, I think the American people need to understand much better what is about to be signed.

I now I sound like a broken record (for those of you over 40 who know what a record is and what a broken record reference means) but if the government took a more active role in reversing the obesity trend in America, we would have all the money it would take to insure the uninsured. From mandating that insurance companies to cover weight loss efforts to actually putting up weight loss centers in underprivileged areas, reversing the grwoing obesity epidemic will markedly decrease expenditures on hospitalizations, doctor visits, and medications.

We are very used to thinking about how to treat disease states when they occur and do not think often enough about how to prevent thosse diseases. Lowering obesity rates in this country will save billions of dollars...and the government would be wise in becoming more aggressive in these efforts.

weight loss and the government

Good Tuesday Morning....

All over the news this morning is the US Government's taskforce changing mammogram recommendations for women. Major changes, with the new recommendation being that a low-risk woman should not be screeened until after 50 (was age 40) and then every other year, not once a year. This will create quite the controversy as obviously, if a woman developed a small lesion at age 43, how would she eve know before it was way too late? Oh, well, think about how much money is being saved by NOT screening women over 40 and for those who develop cancer before age 50 (I would bet that everyone reading this blog has heard/known someone who developed breast cancer before age 50) too bad! Lets total up how much money the insurance companies will make by NOT having to pay for these mammograms. Tens of millions for sure.

Under the "governments" watch, obesity is killing Americans in numbers far exceeding swine flu and other medical issues making front page news. Aside from making insurance company executives millions more in bonuses, how about "the government" do a better job of monitoring the nation's largest health concern (obesity) and doing something about it in a more proactive way. Government weight loss centers? Better education programs in schools? Allowing tax subsidies for obese people doing weight loss programs which cost is bourne by taxing companies such as McDonalds extra for doing this to us?

Once again, these type of "guidelines" will set up a "haves" and "have-nots" system in which women with more money will buy their mammogram every yeat and those with less will be forced into screening every two years....and run the higher risk of cancer. Your thoughts?