Pollan goes on to make clear that nutritional science and nutritional governance in America are often well-beyond the curve in terms of health--e.g. unable to state whether fat or carbohydrates are enemy number one. [or how do we help consumers understand which products are helpful or not?]
HEALTH INDUSTRY HAS BENEFITED FROM SICK PEOPLE
Pollan notes, "[Y]ou know, the healthcare industry profits mightily from the sickness of the population. You know, the food industry is producing lots of patients for the healthcare industry. It's a very convenient relationship. The health insurers, you would think, would have an interest in your health, but in fact their business model up 'til now is based on keeping you out of the pool if you are likely to get chronic disease. If you have a preexisting condition, for one, you can't get in. And then, if you develop one, they raise your rates and do everything they can to get you out, or they have a lifetime cap or whatever it is.
Concerning the ongoing congressional fumbling of the Health Care for America Bills, Pollan adds, "Under the healthcare bills, both the House and Senate bills right now, there are rules that should require them to keep--to insure everybody on an equal footing, so that no more preexisting condition, no more underwriting, in effect. Underwriting is the process of deciding who you want, and underwriting is basically used to keep sick people out of that pool. Once the healthcare industry finds that they're stuck with people with chronic diseases, they will develop, I think, a strong interest in keeping us healthier. And this is a very optimistic view, I realize, and we'll see if it works out this way. But every new case of type 2 diabetes, which basically is caused by lifestyle, by diet--and exercise, to some extent, but 80 percent of it is diet--costs them an extra $6,600 a year per patient, up to $400,000 over the life of the diabetic. So that is--for every case they can prevent of type 2 diabetes, which is not that hard to prevent."
Pollan notes that if Congress or the executive branch would simply choose to eliminate in America the ability of insurance firms to refuse to handle peoples with certain pre-existing conditions, the Health Insurance Industry would have a major incentive to help concerned Americans and medical professionals to change the anti-nutritional nature of the "Nutritional Industrial Complex".
That doesn't mean America's health and nutritional problems would be solved overnight, but the Health Care Alliance-Monopoly in America would be broken.
Michael Pollan also indicates that he is not anti-farmer. He is against the "Nutritional Industrial Complex", which has had farms doing so many things against their own long-term interests for decades. This is important to understand because the U.S. Farm Bill promotes the whole mal-focus of food development in America over the past 5 decades. In short, by getting the farmers to separate from Agro-Business as currently mis-practiced in America, the current anti-nutritional marketing program in America could be better if independent health experts controlled it.
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