How other people's good health habits protect your health....
Today's post: Thursday, 1-22-2009
1. If your car is hit by a drunk driver who is a habitual heavy drinker, you may be injured even if you were driving safely and wearing your set belt.
2. If you are exposed to a lot of other people’s cigarette smoke, you get some of the same health harm and risks the smokers do.
3. If you have more money, you can more easily afford supplements and good for you food such as getting organic produce when the kind that has been exposed to pesticides costs less or buying some beef fed only grass or wild caught salmon when hamburger and hot dogs from grain fed animals is cheaper; you can more easily afford to go to a gym – and by getting better doctors sometimes.
Right now though, you now have less money, chances are, than you would if other people had good health habits because more than half your current real and out of pocket cost for health insurance and some of your direct health care costs are because our health care system is treating people with:
type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, heart failure, strokes, heart attacks, lung cancer, other cancers, and Alzheimer’s disease and other kinds of senility -- all of which people with good health habits would NOT have gotten!
4. There is an even bigger risk for most people. If your friends and family and even their friends and acquaintances have bad health habits, you are less likely to follow good health habits and may even be less able to follow good health habits yourself. This is a well proven fact.
So, if there is a way that other people can be induced to practice better health habits, you may very well be in better health yourself!
How can we do that?
There are some ways other people are more likely to follow good health habits.
One is to pass laws increasing the number of communities and places in each community where smoking is not allowed. That’s worked and been shown recently to cut heart attacks within 3 years of when such laws are passed.
In addition, the good news is that the incoming Obama administration is likely to help make some of these things happen.
His first pick for Surgeon General, Dr Sanjay Gupta, has worked part time as a medical health expert on TV and has often suggested and advocated that people follow good health habits to protect their health.
Tom Daschle, Obama’s pick for Secretary of Health and Human Services, will also serve as the director of a newly-formed White House Office of Health Reform. And, he has been quoted as saying he sees one critical part of these jobs to be to increase the number of Americans who practice good health habits.
One way is to literally sell the idea that practicing good health habits is not only the right thing to do but is also a sign that you are up to date and in the know --and in Tom Daschle’s words is “cool.”
That one is about to happen already.
But there is a more practical and particularly timely way to increase the number of Americans who follow good health habits.
Governments all over the country are short of money but are reluctant to increase taxes during a bad recession, which might very well make things worse, or to cut needed services and face severe criticism and backlash from people who are harmed or unhappy.
There IS a solution to BOTH these problems.
Tax bad health habits; and tax the worst health habits a LOT.
High taxes on things reduces their consumption. But with bad health habits, you get a double effect. The people most likely to practice bad health habits are mostly poor and uneducated. So the people who now have the worst health habits in part because they literally don’t know not to, reduce their consumption even more when such things are heavily taxed.
We already have cigarette taxes; and we already have taxes on alcoholic beverages.
But we do not yet tax soft drinks, commercial baked goods and desserts, packaged snack foods, or any and all foods that are sweetened with sugar or high fructose corn syrup – or with non-nutritive sweeteners which seem to be about as bad for you.
Suppose we had an additional national tax of $1.00 a pack on cigarettes and an equivalent tax on other forms of tobacco. Suppose we had an added national tax of about a quarter per drink on all alcoholic drinks.
Fewer young people would start smoking. People who smoke would smoke a bit less. And more people would quit smoking.
It’s already been shown that a small increase in taxes on alcoholic drinks reduces the amount of drinking by heavy drinkers. Yet for people who drink moderately or lightly an added quarter a drink is not much.
Would this hurt the overall economy? Nope. Many people would spend the same or less on smoking and alcoholic drinks but do it less even if they spend the same. The people who quit smoking or drink less heavily would actually have MORE money to spend on things that will actually boost the economy, Governments would have more money without hurting the economy or cutting needed services.
But that’s the tip of the iceberg. Suppose ALL soft drinks, both regular and diet, had a new national tax of a dime an ounce. Suppose ALL commercial baked goods and desserts, packaged snack foods, or foods that are sweetened with sugar or high fructose corn syrup had a new national tax of a quarter a serving.
Those taxes would raise a LOT of money for awhile when our economy needs it most. Later fewer people would consume those things and food companies would switch to producing better for you foods that aren’t taxed. But initially when our governments most need the money and many people eat or drink far too many of these things, it would really help.
Then let’s suppose most states also began to add their own new taxes on these things.
Fewer people would be fat, fat people would be less fat, and fewer people would get the diseases and incur the medical costs consuming these things causes.
Lastly, even if you know better than to consume these things or consume relatively little of them now, you will be in better health and find it easier to practice good health habits.
So, please suggest to your local and national representatives that they pass such laws that put into place such taxes or increase the ones we have.
Today's post: Thursday, 1-22-2009
1. If your car is hit by a drunk driver who is a habitual heavy drinker, you may be injured even if you were driving safely and wearing your set belt.
2. If you are exposed to a lot of other people’s cigarette smoke, you get some of the same health harm and risks the smokers do.
3. If you have more money, you can more easily afford supplements and good for you food such as getting organic produce when the kind that has been exposed to pesticides costs less or buying some beef fed only grass or wild caught salmon when hamburger and hot dogs from grain fed animals is cheaper; you can more easily afford to go to a gym – and by getting better doctors sometimes.
Right now though, you now have less money, chances are, than you would if other people had good health habits because more than half your current real and out of pocket cost for health insurance and some of your direct health care costs are because our health care system is treating people with:
type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, heart failure, strokes, heart attacks, lung cancer, other cancers, and Alzheimer’s disease and other kinds of senility -- all of which people with good health habits would NOT have gotten!
4. There is an even bigger risk for most people. If your friends and family and even their friends and acquaintances have bad health habits, you are less likely to follow good health habits and may even be less able to follow good health habits yourself. This is a well proven fact.
So, if there is a way that other people can be induced to practice better health habits, you may very well be in better health yourself!
How can we do that?
There are some ways other people are more likely to follow good health habits.
One is to pass laws increasing the number of communities and places in each community where smoking is not allowed. That’s worked and been shown recently to cut heart attacks within 3 years of when such laws are passed.
In addition, the good news is that the incoming Obama administration is likely to help make some of these things happen.
His first pick for Surgeon General, Dr Sanjay Gupta, has worked part time as a medical health expert on TV and has often suggested and advocated that people follow good health habits to protect their health.
Tom Daschle, Obama’s pick for Secretary of Health and Human Services, will also serve as the director of a newly-formed White House Office of Health Reform. And, he has been quoted as saying he sees one critical part of these jobs to be to increase the number of Americans who practice good health habits.
One way is to literally sell the idea that practicing good health habits is not only the right thing to do but is also a sign that you are up to date and in the know --and in Tom Daschle’s words is “cool.”
That one is about to happen already.
But there is a more practical and particularly timely way to increase the number of Americans who follow good health habits.
Governments all over the country are short of money but are reluctant to increase taxes during a bad recession, which might very well make things worse, or to cut needed services and face severe criticism and backlash from people who are harmed or unhappy.
There IS a solution to BOTH these problems.
Tax bad health habits; and tax the worst health habits a LOT.
High taxes on things reduces their consumption. But with bad health habits, you get a double effect. The people most likely to practice bad health habits are mostly poor and uneducated. So the people who now have the worst health habits in part because they literally don’t know not to, reduce their consumption even more when such things are heavily taxed.
We already have cigarette taxes; and we already have taxes on alcoholic beverages.
But we do not yet tax soft drinks, commercial baked goods and desserts, packaged snack foods, or any and all foods that are sweetened with sugar or high fructose corn syrup – or with non-nutritive sweeteners which seem to be about as bad for you.
Suppose we had an additional national tax of $1.00 a pack on cigarettes and an equivalent tax on other forms of tobacco. Suppose we had an added national tax of about a quarter per drink on all alcoholic drinks.
Fewer young people would start smoking. People who smoke would smoke a bit less. And more people would quit smoking.
It’s already been shown that a small increase in taxes on alcoholic drinks reduces the amount of drinking by heavy drinkers. Yet for people who drink moderately or lightly an added quarter a drink is not much.
Would this hurt the overall economy? Nope. Many people would spend the same or less on smoking and alcoholic drinks but do it less even if they spend the same. The people who quit smoking or drink less heavily would actually have MORE money to spend on things that will actually boost the economy, Governments would have more money without hurting the economy or cutting needed services.
But that’s the tip of the iceberg. Suppose ALL soft drinks, both regular and diet, had a new national tax of a dime an ounce. Suppose ALL commercial baked goods and desserts, packaged snack foods, or foods that are sweetened with sugar or high fructose corn syrup had a new national tax of a quarter a serving.
Those taxes would raise a LOT of money for awhile when our economy needs it most. Later fewer people would consume those things and food companies would switch to producing better for you foods that aren’t taxed. But initially when our governments most need the money and many people eat or drink far too many of these things, it would really help.
Then let’s suppose most states also began to add their own new taxes on these things.
Fewer people would be fat, fat people would be less fat, and fewer people would get the diseases and incur the medical costs consuming these things causes.
Lastly, even if you know better than to consume these things or consume relatively little of them now, you will be in better health and find it easier to practice good health habits.
So, please suggest to your local and national representatives that they pass such laws that put into place such taxes or increase the ones we have.
Labels: add prevention to health care reform, health care policy, health care reform, health policy, How other people's good health habits protect your health, taxes on bad health habits
posted by David at 2:05 PM
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