By MARSHA MERCER
It sounds like the plot of a horror movie:
An insidious virus sweeps the nation, infecting half the population. Millions go to work sick, spreading disease. Hospitals and intensive care units are overloaded. Medicines are in short supply, and pharmacies run out. Within a few months, the dead number 90,000, with most of the victims under the age of 50.
It’s not a movie. The President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology offered this “plausible scenario” in a report about a possible surge of the swine flu, or 2009 H1N1, this fall and winter. The council emphasized that the scenario was not a prediction but a possibility that federal, state and local officials should use in planning.
There’s no need to panic, but the government wants people to be aware that swine flu could be worse than it was last spring. As for a vaccine to protect us -- don’t count on it. We’ll need to take steps ourselves and if we get sick, stay home, if we can.
The report said peak infection could come by mid-October. But it will be Thanksgiving before shots can protect most Americans from H1N1, Health and Human Services secretary Kathleen Sebelius told reporters.
Manufacturers started testing the vaccine’s safety only this month. The government’s vaccination campaign is supposed to start in mid-October, but it will require two doses three weeks apart and then take a couple of weeks to become effective.
And, there’s a logistical challenge. The government recommends that people also get inoculated against seasonal flu, which typically kills about 36,000 a year. That means three flu shots.
It’s possible that manufacturers will be able to produce and distribute the swine flu vaccine earlier or that the virus won’t surge next month after school and cooler, drier weather resume. Nobody knows.
When swine flu arrived last April, dire predictions caused turmoil – but the virus was not as devastating as feared. Unlike seasonal flu which tends to dissipate in warmer months, though, swine flu persisted through the summer, infecting some kids at camp. That worries health officials.
To combat the flu, the Centers for Disease Control and other health organizations advise plenty of hand-washing, coughing into tissues and sleeves (not hands) and just stay home when sick.
These precautions are sensible, but there’s a weak link. Millions of Americans can’t stay home because they lack paid sick days. They risk financial and even job loss if they don’t go to work. While 61 percent of private-sector workers have paid sick leave, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in March, only 26 percent of part-time workers do.
Paid sick days are standard for government and white-collar employees but not for those in food service, hotels and construction. Only about 15 percent of restaurant workers have paid sick days, according to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research.
The president’s council recommended flexible sick leave policies. A couple of cities have passed such measures, and about 15 states, including North Carolina, are considering them. But it will take a federal law to make paid sick days a widespread reality. This should be a priority when Congress returns from its August break.
To be sure, this is hardly the time to ask businesses to expand benefits, especially small businesses that are hurting, but public health may depend on it. Besides, some studies have shown that “presenteeism,” sick employees coming to work and infecting their co-workers, actually costs employers more than absenteeism. A 2007 study by the Society for Human Resources Management pegged presenteeism at $180 billion annually and absenteeism at $118 billion.
Passing paid sick days would be a tribute to the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D- Mass. For years, Kennedy and Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., have proposed the Healthy Families Act that would require employers with more than 15 workers to allow employees to accrue seven days of sick leave annually. The time could be used to care for a sick family member.
In Washington offices these days, you’re more likely to see a bottle of hand sanitizer or a bowl of moist towelettes on a reception desk than a bouquet of fresh flowers. Visitors to the National Building Museum are greeted by a poster that reads: “Wash Your Hands & Reduce the Spread of Germs.”
That’s good advice. Now, Congress needs to act to protect public health by making sure sick workers can just stay home.
© 2009 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Thursday, August 20, 2009
How to get health-care reform on track -- Aug. 20, 2009 column
By MARSHA MERCER
Several smart journalists were on a public radio talk show the other day, calmly and dispassionately discussing health-care reform, when something surprising happened.
A man who had lost his insurance called, and he was angry. These panelists all have coverage, he said, and they can’t possibly understand how the issue affects people who don’t.
After the tiniest pause, the host invited the caller to tell his story. It was too late; he had already hung up. The host clucked that the man should have used his moment to enlighten the world, but I could understand his frustration.
In this cantankerous summer of shouting matches and gun-toting creeps at health-care town halls, it often seems that the uninsured, the people who will be most affected by health-care reform, either have been used as props or simply ignored. Even their numbers are in dispute. Is it 46 million or half that?
Furious speakers at congressional town hall meetings rage against losing their current benefits and raise the specter of Big Brother and “death panels.” Congressmen worry about next year’s elections. President Obama talks about curbing costs when he could be fostering a can-do, we’re-all-in-this-together attitude.
Change as big as health-care reform is about more than dollars and deficits and heartless bureaucrats and insurance companies. It’s about the kind of country we want.
It’s not too late for the president to use his bully pulpit to set a new tone and lead a discussion about our moral responsibilities to our fellow citizens. Oddly, it has taken until this week for the president to raise the moral imperative, which he did in calls with liberal religious leaders.
As Obama wrestles with congressional Democrats to pass reform in the fall, he and his advisers should remember what attracted voters. Candidate Obama said health care should be the right of every American.
During the second presidential debate last fall, NBC newsman Tom Brokaw asked candidates John McCain and Obama if health care is “a privilege, a right or a responsibility.”
McCain responded mushily that health care is an individual responsibility, sort of.
“I think it’s a responsibility, in this respect, in that we should have available and affordable health care to every American citizen, to every family member. … But government mandates I — I’m always a little nervous about. But it is certainly my responsibility,” McCain said.
Obama replied crisply, “Well, I think it should be a right for every American.”
He continued, “In a country as wealthy as ours, for us to have people who are going bankrupt because they can't pay their medical bills -- for my mother to die of cancer at the age of 53 and have to spend the last months of her life in the hospital room arguing with insurance companies because they're saying that this may be a pre-existing condition and they don't have to pay her treatment, there's something fundamentally wrong about that.”
Obama won with a vision of change that lifted up all Americans. Now is not time for the country to wallow in an every-man-for-himself mentality.
But this summer, health-care reform has been about self-interest. The people who complain loudest against a government takeover and socialized medicine already have health insurance. They don’t need a government option.
The White House may jettison the public option so that some sort of bipartisan reform can pass. That’s politics, but to win Democratic support, the final bill needs to include a way to ensure coverage for citizens who lack insurance. That’s more than a political reality. Without such a measure, we risk rising social insecurity and distrust in institutions.
I’ve been surprised by the level of cynicism in the mail I receive from readers, and I’ll write more about that soon. For now, let’s say that many people have lost their faith in politicians, government and the chattering class.
After all, the so-called government experts who tell us the economy is on the mend all have jobs and health insurance. The pundits and professors who say we should rethink the American dream of home ownership and be satisfied with renting? They own their own homes – and have jobs and health insurance.
Empathy got a bad name during the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court justice Sonia Sotomayor, but the angry radio caller was right to want a seat at the table for those who will be most affected by what happens in Washington.
©2009 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.
Several smart journalists were on a public radio talk show the other day, calmly and dispassionately discussing health-care reform, when something surprising happened.
A man who had lost his insurance called, and he was angry. These panelists all have coverage, he said, and they can’t possibly understand how the issue affects people who don’t.
After the tiniest pause, the host invited the caller to tell his story. It was too late; he had already hung up. The host clucked that the man should have used his moment to enlighten the world, but I could understand his frustration.
In this cantankerous summer of shouting matches and gun-toting creeps at health-care town halls, it often seems that the uninsured, the people who will be most affected by health-care reform, either have been used as props or simply ignored. Even their numbers are in dispute. Is it 46 million or half that?
Furious speakers at congressional town hall meetings rage against losing their current benefits and raise the specter of Big Brother and “death panels.” Congressmen worry about next year’s elections. President Obama talks about curbing costs when he could be fostering a can-do, we’re-all-in-this-together attitude.
Change as big as health-care reform is about more than dollars and deficits and heartless bureaucrats and insurance companies. It’s about the kind of country we want.
It’s not too late for the president to use his bully pulpit to set a new tone and lead a discussion about our moral responsibilities to our fellow citizens. Oddly, it has taken until this week for the president to raise the moral imperative, which he did in calls with liberal religious leaders.
As Obama wrestles with congressional Democrats to pass reform in the fall, he and his advisers should remember what attracted voters. Candidate Obama said health care should be the right of every American.
During the second presidential debate last fall, NBC newsman Tom Brokaw asked candidates John McCain and Obama if health care is “a privilege, a right or a responsibility.”
McCain responded mushily that health care is an individual responsibility, sort of.
“I think it’s a responsibility, in this respect, in that we should have available and affordable health care to every American citizen, to every family member. … But government mandates I — I’m always a little nervous about. But it is certainly my responsibility,” McCain said.
Obama replied crisply, “Well, I think it should be a right for every American.”
He continued, “In a country as wealthy as ours, for us to have people who are going bankrupt because they can't pay their medical bills -- for my mother to die of cancer at the age of 53 and have to spend the last months of her life in the hospital room arguing with insurance companies because they're saying that this may be a pre-existing condition and they don't have to pay her treatment, there's something fundamentally wrong about that.”
Obama won with a vision of change that lifted up all Americans. Now is not time for the country to wallow in an every-man-for-himself mentality.
But this summer, health-care reform has been about self-interest. The people who complain loudest against a government takeover and socialized medicine already have health insurance. They don’t need a government option.
The White House may jettison the public option so that some sort of bipartisan reform can pass. That’s politics, but to win Democratic support, the final bill needs to include a way to ensure coverage for citizens who lack insurance. That’s more than a political reality. Without such a measure, we risk rising social insecurity and distrust in institutions.
I’ve been surprised by the level of cynicism in the mail I receive from readers, and I’ll write more about that soon. For now, let’s say that many people have lost their faith in politicians, government and the chattering class.
After all, the so-called government experts who tell us the economy is on the mend all have jobs and health insurance. The pundits and professors who say we should rethink the American dream of home ownership and be satisfied with renting? They own their own homes – and have jobs and health insurance.
Empathy got a bad name during the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court justice Sonia Sotomayor, but the angry radio caller was right to want a seat at the table for those who will be most affected by what happens in Washington.
©2009 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Obama as LBJ? -- Aug. 13, 2009 column
By MARSHA MERCER
President Lyndon Johnson, signing Medicare into law 44 years ago, triumphantly predicted better lives not only for the elderly but also for younger Americans.
“No longer will older Americans be denied the healing miracle of modern medicine,” Johnson said. “No longer will illness crush and destroy the savings that they have so carefully put away over a lifetime so that they might enjoy dignity in their later years. No longer will young families see their own incomes, and their own hopes, eaten away simply because they are carrying out their deep moral obligations to their parents, and to their uncles, and their aunts.”
The genius of LBJ was in offering something for everybody. Yes, seniors would benefit from Medicare, but so too would the younger generation. The new Medicaid program would begin to cover poor children and some of the disabled.
Johnson was right. Medicare transformed lives across generational lines, easing the burden of health-care costs for our aging population. Now ironically that success has become a problem for President Barack Obama as he tries to extend health-care security to other groups.
Polls show that the majority of people over 50 oppose Obama’s health-care reform ideas, while a majority of those under 50 support them. The face of the angry protester at congressional town hall meetings is the retiree who likes his or her Medicare just the way it is, thank you.
In Portsmouth, N.H., Obama tried to reassure seniors, saying, “We are not talking about cutting Medicare benefits.” But he’s also looking for significant savings from the popular program, which he says can be accomplished without hurting beneficiaries.
Obama talked about a letter from a woman who wrote, “I don’t want government-run health care. I don’t want you meddling in the private marketplace. And keep your hands off my Medicare.”
The crowd laughed, and he said, “True story.” He cited Medicare as an example of a government program run right and said seniors should have more confidence that “government
can have a role – not the dominant role, but a role – in making sure the people are treated fairly when it comes to insurance.”
You’d think everyone could agree to such a mild goal, but trust in government is in short supply.
Because no one bill is under consideration – several are kicking around in the House and Senate – nobody can say with certainty what provisions will be in the final package. That has opened the door to fear-mongering, including preposterous claims by Sarah Palin that government “death panels” could withhold care from her parents and baby with Down Syndrome and Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., who suggested the House Democratic health-reform bill would lead to the government putting elderly people to death.
Palin subsequently stepped back from her claim.
Obama has tried to tamp down fears of Big Brother and rationing, and he has shifted the emphasis from covering the millions who are uninsured to attacking the insurance industry. The idea is that most people do have insurance, but they’re unhappy with their coverage. This may turn out to be a miscalculation.
A new poll by CNN-Opinion Research Corp. found that 74 percent of people are satisfied with their insurance, and 83 percent are happy with their health care.
Obama wants to be the heir to Lyndon Johnson, and it still seems likely that some kind of health-care reform will pass, although it may be less than Obama wants.
As the “don’t-touch-Medicare” chorus grows louder, however, Obama risks becoming more like Bill Clinton, whose attempt to overhaul the entire health-care system died partly because of the opposition of seniors. Voters in the following midterm election punished Democrats and delivered control of the House and Senate to Republicans.
Clinton, chastened by the defeat of reform and the 1994 elections, said on the 30th anniversary of Medicare in 1995, “We had people all over America coming up to me or the first lady…saying, ‘Don’t let the government mess with my Medicare.’ People had actually forgotten where it came from, as if it sort of dropped out of the sky.”
In Johnson’s Great Society, government was a partner in fostering hope across generational lines. Clinton failed at bringing the generations together. We’re about to find out if Obama can cast the benefit net widely -- or whether opponents will be successful in depicting reform as a zero-sum game in which one group must lose.
© Copyright 2009 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.
President Lyndon Johnson, signing Medicare into law 44 years ago, triumphantly predicted better lives not only for the elderly but also for younger Americans.
“No longer will older Americans be denied the healing miracle of modern medicine,” Johnson said. “No longer will illness crush and destroy the savings that they have so carefully put away over a lifetime so that they might enjoy dignity in their later years. No longer will young families see their own incomes, and their own hopes, eaten away simply because they are carrying out their deep moral obligations to their parents, and to their uncles, and their aunts.”
The genius of LBJ was in offering something for everybody. Yes, seniors would benefit from Medicare, but so too would the younger generation. The new Medicaid program would begin to cover poor children and some of the disabled.
Johnson was right. Medicare transformed lives across generational lines, easing the burden of health-care costs for our aging population. Now ironically that success has become a problem for President Barack Obama as he tries to extend health-care security to other groups.
Polls show that the majority of people over 50 oppose Obama’s health-care reform ideas, while a majority of those under 50 support them. The face of the angry protester at congressional town hall meetings is the retiree who likes his or her Medicare just the way it is, thank you.
In Portsmouth, N.H., Obama tried to reassure seniors, saying, “We are not talking about cutting Medicare benefits.” But he’s also looking for significant savings from the popular program, which he says can be accomplished without hurting beneficiaries.
Obama talked about a letter from a woman who wrote, “I don’t want government-run health care. I don’t want you meddling in the private marketplace. And keep your hands off my Medicare.”
The crowd laughed, and he said, “True story.” He cited Medicare as an example of a government program run right and said seniors should have more confidence that “government
can have a role – not the dominant role, but a role – in making sure the people are treated fairly when it comes to insurance.”
You’d think everyone could agree to such a mild goal, but trust in government is in short supply.
Because no one bill is under consideration – several are kicking around in the House and Senate – nobody can say with certainty what provisions will be in the final package. That has opened the door to fear-mongering, including preposterous claims by Sarah Palin that government “death panels” could withhold care from her parents and baby with Down Syndrome and Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., who suggested the House Democratic health-reform bill would lead to the government putting elderly people to death.
Palin subsequently stepped back from her claim.
Obama has tried to tamp down fears of Big Brother and rationing, and he has shifted the emphasis from covering the millions who are uninsured to attacking the insurance industry. The idea is that most people do have insurance, but they’re unhappy with their coverage. This may turn out to be a miscalculation.
A new poll by CNN-Opinion Research Corp. found that 74 percent of people are satisfied with their insurance, and 83 percent are happy with their health care.
Obama wants to be the heir to Lyndon Johnson, and it still seems likely that some kind of health-care reform will pass, although it may be less than Obama wants.
As the “don’t-touch-Medicare” chorus grows louder, however, Obama risks becoming more like Bill Clinton, whose attempt to overhaul the entire health-care system died partly because of the opposition of seniors. Voters in the following midterm election punished Democrats and delivered control of the House and Senate to Republicans.
Clinton, chastened by the defeat of reform and the 1994 elections, said on the 30th anniversary of Medicare in 1995, “We had people all over America coming up to me or the first lady…saying, ‘Don’t let the government mess with my Medicare.’ People had actually forgotten where it came from, as if it sort of dropped out of the sky.”
In Johnson’s Great Society, government was a partner in fostering hope across generational lines. Clinton failed at bringing the generations together. We’re about to find out if Obama can cast the benefit net widely -- or whether opponents will be successful in depicting reform as a zero-sum game in which one group must lose.
© Copyright 2009 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Taxing the middle class after all – Aug. 6, 2009 column
By MARSHA MERCER
It’s hard to argue with raising other people’s taxes.
When President Barack Obama said the best way to pay for health-care reform may be for people like himself “who have been very lucky and are in the top – not just one percent but top half percent – of the income ladder to pay a little bit more,” many people thought he had an excellent idea.
The late Sen. Russell B. Long of Louisiana was onto something when he said raising taxes is a game of "don't tax you, don't tax me, tax that fellow behind the tree."
It’s pleasant to think that a lucky few can deliver health-care coverage with little pain to themselves or anyone else. So why stop there? Tax the rich to rein in the ballooning federal deficit and save Social Security and Medicare.
If only it were that easy.
It’s time to put aside the happy fiction that tapping the top 5 percent of tax filers can solve the nation’s financial troubles. It won’t happen.
Sad but true: The deep pockets aren’t deep enough. That’s not just a Republican line; liberal economists say taming the deficit beast will require help from the middle class too.
Candidate Obama promised everybody making less than $250,000 a year that they won’t pay a dime more in taxes. President Obama is sticking to that promise and is pledging to pay for health-care reform without adding a penny to the federal deficit.
Like every president, Obama also has taken aim at wasteful government spending, fraud and abuse, but those popular targets never yield much.
Something’s got to give.
Polls show most people favor paying for health reform through limiting tax deductions for high rollers and forcing smokers to pay more per pack.
Senate leaders have a list of revenue options. These include requiring well-off seniors to pay more for prescription drugs, taxing people who don’t buy health insurance and companies that provide especially generous insurance plans, new excise taxes and limits on health savings accounts. Meanwhile, committees are working to whittle down the price tag of a trillion dollars over 10 years.
Even if some form of paid-for reform becomes law, though, we’ll still face a stack of bills from the economic stimulus plan and other Obama spending projects. The conventional wisdom used to be that “deficits don’t count.” These days, people are worried about the country’s massive deficit.
Two of the president’s top economic advisers refused on Sunday talk shows to rule out raising taxes on the middle class. Nor are they saying yes to higher taxes just yet.
“It is never a good idea to absolutely rule things out no matter what,” Larry Summers, a former Treasury secretary, said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” And Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said on ABC’s “This Week” that once the recovery is established, “We have to do what’s necessary” to bring down the deficit, and that will require “some very hard choices.”
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said, “I don’t think any economist would believe that, in the environment that we’re in, that raising taxes on middle-class families would make any sense.”
Isabel V. Sawhill, an economist at the Brookings Institution who was on Clinton’s budget team, is among those saying higher taxes for the middle class are inevitable.
Sawhill told New York Times reporter Jackie Calmes, “There is no way we can pay for health care and the rest of the Obama agenda, plus get our long-term deficits under control, simply by raising taxes on the wealthy,” adding, “The middle class is going to have to contribute as well.”
All this explains why you’ll be hearing more about a value-added tax.
The VAT is a consumption tax used in scores of countries around the world. The tax on goods and services is assessed along the line, rather than at the end point of sale, like a sales tax. Since consumers don’t see it, the VAT is a way to raise taxes fairly painlessly.
Alan Greenspan, former chairman of the Federal Reserve, said Sunday that he thinks a VAT is likely – in time.
A growing group of academic and think-tank economists are pushing a VAT as part of an overhaul of the income tax code. Proponents say a VAT is fair because nobody can evade it, and tinkering can make it less regressive.
Still, the idea will take some getting used to. With a VAT, everybody is “that man behind the tree.”
© 2009 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Fat, the new tobacco -- July 30, 2009 column
By MARSHA MERCER
During World War II, an ad in Sunday newspapers urged moms to “take a modern look at candy – as a food.”
The 1944 ad by the Council on Candy of the National Confectioners’ Association shows a cheese sandwich, a glass of milk and an apple next to a glossy chocolate bar. The headline: “Modern partners in eating.” Below the picture is a six-point “Nutritional Platform of Candy.”
I spotted the page at a flea market, bought it and had it framed. Candy as a food group – yes! Thank you, Greatest Generation.
These days, dark chocolate wins nutritional points for its flavonoids, but we generally see candy and other sugary treats as culprits in our super-sized society.
Two-thirds of adults and one-fifth of children are either obese or overweight, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which just concluded a four-day “Weight of the Nation” conference. The CDC issued 24 recommendations to help communities fight the “obesity epidemic.”
Brace yourself. If obesity is a national epidemic, “crisis” can’t be far behind. The next front in the health wars is obesity, and it’s going to look a lot like the fight against tobacco. That’s good news in that the tobacco wars taught us how to change attitudes and behavior, but we’ll need to guard against demonizing people or foods.
The medical costs of obesity in the United States are staggering -- $147 billion annually, according to a new CDC study. Another new study, from the University of Virginia and the Urban Institute, put the price tag higher -- $200 billion a year. That report also said health insurance premiums for non-obese workers are $26 billion a year higher because of the medical costs of the obese.
Clearly, we’ve got to do something. The Virginia-Urban Institute study proposes a 10-percent tax on fattening foods that it says will raise $500 billion in revenue over 10 years. If combined with a subsidy to lower the price of fruits and vegetables 10 percent, the net revenue still would be more than $350 billion over the period, according to authors Carolyn L. Engelhard, Arthur Garson Jr. and Stan Dorn. Engelhard and Garson are at Virginia, where Garson is former dean of the university’s medical school. Dorn is at the Urban Institute.
The CDC report doesn’t mention higher taxes, but it cites the success of the tobacco-control model in other areas. Among the recommendations: restricting what’s sold in vending machines in schools and other public facilities as well as limiting advertisements of less-healthy foods and beverages. The Virginia-Urban Institute study proposes more aggressive strategies, including stronger warning labels on fattening foods.
Critics of the Big Brother approach will howl that food isn’t tobacco, and they’re right. For one thing, nobody has to smoke or use tobacco products to survive, but people do have to eat. And what they eat often is determined by personal economics, culture and proximity. Many inner city residents don’t have access to good stores with a variety of fresh fruits and vegetables.
And while some would argue the food industry is just selling what people want, there’s a rising chorus that it bears responsibility for rising obesity. Dr. David Kessler, former head of the Food and Drug Administration, argues in his new book, “The End of Overeating” that the industry produces highly processed foods that contain loads of salt, sugar and fat, conditioning people to want more.
The Virginia-Urban Institute report says, “While fattening food does not contain a clearly addictive chemical like nicotine, there is significant and increasing evidence that the food industry adjusts food content, triggering hard to control cravings that increase consumption of fattening food.”
It’s worth remembering that obesity is not just a matter of people lacking self-discipline. We also need to rethink the government’s role in our food.
Changing the way people eat will be tough and more complicated than convincing people to give up smoking. There’s the inconvenient truth that some fattening foods – like chocolate -- are beneficial in moderation.
The 1944 ad touted candy as a morale builder. The ad included a “War Note,” saying that all Army and Navy field rations contained candy, and 50 percent of certain kinds of candies were being set aside for the armed forces.
“So when you can’t get exactly the candy you want, remember it’s helping to build energy and morale for G.I. Joe and G.I. Jane…”
The G.I.s got free packs of cigarettes too.
(Marsha Mercer is an independent columnist writing from Washington. You can contact her at marsha.mercer@yahoo.com)
© 2009 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.
During World War II, an ad in Sunday newspapers urged moms to “take a modern look at candy – as a food.”
The 1944 ad by the Council on Candy of the National Confectioners’ Association shows a cheese sandwich, a glass of milk and an apple next to a glossy chocolate bar. The headline: “Modern partners in eating.” Below the picture is a six-point “Nutritional Platform of Candy.”
I spotted the page at a flea market, bought it and had it framed. Candy as a food group – yes! Thank you, Greatest Generation.
These days, dark chocolate wins nutritional points for its flavonoids, but we generally see candy and other sugary treats as culprits in our super-sized society.
Two-thirds of adults and one-fifth of children are either obese or overweight, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which just concluded a four-day “Weight of the Nation” conference. The CDC issued 24 recommendations to help communities fight the “obesity epidemic.”
Brace yourself. If obesity is a national epidemic, “crisis” can’t be far behind. The next front in the health wars is obesity, and it’s going to look a lot like the fight against tobacco. That’s good news in that the tobacco wars taught us how to change attitudes and behavior, but we’ll need to guard against demonizing people or foods.
The medical costs of obesity in the United States are staggering -- $147 billion annually, according to a new CDC study. Another new study, from the University of Virginia and the Urban Institute, put the price tag higher -- $200 billion a year. That report also said health insurance premiums for non-obese workers are $26 billion a year higher because of the medical costs of the obese.
Clearly, we’ve got to do something. The Virginia-Urban Institute study proposes a 10-percent tax on fattening foods that it says will raise $500 billion in revenue over 10 years. If combined with a subsidy to lower the price of fruits and vegetables 10 percent, the net revenue still would be more than $350 billion over the period, according to authors Carolyn L. Engelhard, Arthur Garson Jr. and Stan Dorn. Engelhard and Garson are at Virginia, where Garson is former dean of the university’s medical school. Dorn is at the Urban Institute.
The CDC report doesn’t mention higher taxes, but it cites the success of the tobacco-control model in other areas. Among the recommendations: restricting what’s sold in vending machines in schools and other public facilities as well as limiting advertisements of less-healthy foods and beverages. The Virginia-Urban Institute study proposes more aggressive strategies, including stronger warning labels on fattening foods.
Critics of the Big Brother approach will howl that food isn’t tobacco, and they’re right. For one thing, nobody has to smoke or use tobacco products to survive, but people do have to eat. And what they eat often is determined by personal economics, culture and proximity. Many inner city residents don’t have access to good stores with a variety of fresh fruits and vegetables.
And while some would argue the food industry is just selling what people want, there’s a rising chorus that it bears responsibility for rising obesity. Dr. David Kessler, former head of the Food and Drug Administration, argues in his new book, “The End of Overeating” that the industry produces highly processed foods that contain loads of salt, sugar and fat, conditioning people to want more.
The Virginia-Urban Institute report says, “While fattening food does not contain a clearly addictive chemical like nicotine, there is significant and increasing evidence that the food industry adjusts food content, triggering hard to control cravings that increase consumption of fattening food.”
It’s worth remembering that obesity is not just a matter of people lacking self-discipline. We also need to rethink the government’s role in our food.
Changing the way people eat will be tough and more complicated than convincing people to give up smoking. There’s the inconvenient truth that some fattening foods – like chocolate -- are beneficial in moderation.
The 1944 ad touted candy as a morale builder. The ad included a “War Note,” saying that all Army and Navy field rations contained candy, and 50 percent of certain kinds of candies were being set aside for the armed forces.
“So when you can’t get exactly the candy you want, remember it’s helping to build energy and morale for G.I. Joe and G.I. Jane…”
The G.I.s got free packs of cigarettes too.
(Marsha Mercer is an independent columnist writing from Washington. You can contact her at marsha.mercer@yahoo.com)
© 2009 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Obama an impostor? Not in my country -- July 23, 2009 column
By MARSHA MERCER
You’ve probably seen the video. A woman holds up a small American flag along with a plastic bag containing her birth certificate and rants at her congressman for not pushing President Barack Obama about his citizenship.
“He is not an American citizen. He is a citizen of Kenya,” the woman declares. The crowd at the town meeting is clearly with her, cheering and applauding.
Then she wails, “I want my country back.” Aha, so that’s what this “birther” business is about.
There’s nothing like fear to make people yearn for a simpler time and place, and we’re living through a frightening, complicated period. Not only are we in a severe economic downturn and two wars, but also the first black president is trying to restructure the economy, health care, banking and the auto industry.
His political foes claim the president is turning the country socialist, and they stoke worries of higher taxes, massive deficits and Big Brother controlling daily life.
Anyone who upsets the status quo as Obama is doing has to expect a backlash, but what’s happening this summer is troubling. Right-wing Web sites, cable TV and radio talkers are using tactics of hate and desperation to stir emotion and undermine Obama’s legitimacy as president.
Opinion shapers who know better – Rush Limbaugh, Lou Dobbs and others -- are encouraging the fearful to believe the falsehood that Obama is not a U.S. citizen. In pursuit of ratings, clicks and cash, these talkers and sites insinuate that Obama is an impostor who sailed into office under false colors. They impugn the president’s motives and suggest he doesn’t have American interests at heart.
People are entitled to their opinions but not to their own facts.
Despite evidence to the contrary, “birthers” argue that Obama wasn’t born in the United States. Other contend that since both his parents weren’t U.S. citizens, he doesn’t meet the qualification in Article II of the Constitution that a president must be a “natural born citizen.” The Constitution doesn’t define “natural born,” nor has Congress. Federal courts so far have declined to hear cases involving Obama’s eligibility to be president.
In the video, Republican Rep. Mike Castle of Delaware quietly tells his angry constituent that the president is a citizen -- and the crowd boos. The woman stands up again and urges everyone to recite the Pledge of Allegiance right then and there, and they do.
Liz Cheney, a daughter of the former vice president and a former State Department official, was on Larry King Live defending those who believe that Obama is ineligible to be president. Asked if she thinks Obama was born in Kenya, Cheney said no, but she empathized with those who think that way, saying that people are increasingly uncomfortable with a president who is reluctant to defend the nation overseas.
Democratic strategist James Carville criticized Cheney for failing to declare the citizenship question ludicrous.
During the presidential campaign, Obama posted online a birth certificate showing he was born in the state of Hawaii. Birthers charged that the document was a forgery. After a fact-checking group examined it and said it was indeed real, birthers complained it wasn’t a “long form” certificate that would show the hospital’s and doctor’s names.
Last October, the director of the Hawaii Department of Health issued a statement saying that she had “personally seen and verified” that the department has Obama’s original birth certificate on record.
A Honolulu reporter went through the city’s newspaper archives from 1961 and found an announcement in two local papers of the birth of a son to Mr. and Mrs. Barack H. Obama of 6085 Kalanianole Highway on Aug. 4.
Both PolitiFact.com and FactCheck.org have run to ground assorted non-citizenship rumors, finding them false. The “noble truth,” said White House press secretary Robert Gibbs, is that
Obama was born in Hawaii.
Still, some Web sites champion the few military men who have filed lawsuits claiming that Obama is not the lawful commander in chief. They make heroes of the few members of Congress who have gotten in on the act.
Rep. Bill Posey, Republican of Florida, introduced a bill that would require future presidential candidates to submit their birth certificates. Nine House Republicans have joined Posey’s cause. Like Liz Cheney, most say they personally think Obama is a U.S. citizen, but that this requirement will head off questions in the future. Wink, wink.
Now I want my country back.
marsha.mercer@yahoo.com
© 2009 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.
You’ve probably seen the video. A woman holds up a small American flag along with a plastic bag containing her birth certificate and rants at her congressman for not pushing President Barack Obama about his citizenship.
“He is not an American citizen. He is a citizen of Kenya,” the woman declares. The crowd at the town meeting is clearly with her, cheering and applauding.
Then she wails, “I want my country back.” Aha, so that’s what this “birther” business is about.
There’s nothing like fear to make people yearn for a simpler time and place, and we’re living through a frightening, complicated period. Not only are we in a severe economic downturn and two wars, but also the first black president is trying to restructure the economy, health care, banking and the auto industry.
His political foes claim the president is turning the country socialist, and they stoke worries of higher taxes, massive deficits and Big Brother controlling daily life.
Anyone who upsets the status quo as Obama is doing has to expect a backlash, but what’s happening this summer is troubling. Right-wing Web sites, cable TV and radio talkers are using tactics of hate and desperation to stir emotion and undermine Obama’s legitimacy as president.
Opinion shapers who know better – Rush Limbaugh, Lou Dobbs and others -- are encouraging the fearful to believe the falsehood that Obama is not a U.S. citizen. In pursuit of ratings, clicks and cash, these talkers and sites insinuate that Obama is an impostor who sailed into office under false colors. They impugn the president’s motives and suggest he doesn’t have American interests at heart.
People are entitled to their opinions but not to their own facts.
Despite evidence to the contrary, “birthers” argue that Obama wasn’t born in the United States. Other contend that since both his parents weren’t U.S. citizens, he doesn’t meet the qualification in Article II of the Constitution that a president must be a “natural born citizen.” The Constitution doesn’t define “natural born,” nor has Congress. Federal courts so far have declined to hear cases involving Obama’s eligibility to be president.
In the video, Republican Rep. Mike Castle of Delaware quietly tells his angry constituent that the president is a citizen -- and the crowd boos. The woman stands up again and urges everyone to recite the Pledge of Allegiance right then and there, and they do.
Liz Cheney, a daughter of the former vice president and a former State Department official, was on Larry King Live defending those who believe that Obama is ineligible to be president. Asked if she thinks Obama was born in Kenya, Cheney said no, but she empathized with those who think that way, saying that people are increasingly uncomfortable with a president who is reluctant to defend the nation overseas.
Democratic strategist James Carville criticized Cheney for failing to declare the citizenship question ludicrous.
During the presidential campaign, Obama posted online a birth certificate showing he was born in the state of Hawaii. Birthers charged that the document was a forgery. After a fact-checking group examined it and said it was indeed real, birthers complained it wasn’t a “long form” certificate that would show the hospital’s and doctor’s names.
Last October, the director of the Hawaii Department of Health issued a statement saying that she had “personally seen and verified” that the department has Obama’s original birth certificate on record.
A Honolulu reporter went through the city’s newspaper archives from 1961 and found an announcement in two local papers of the birth of a son to Mr. and Mrs. Barack H. Obama of 6085 Kalanianole Highway on Aug. 4.
Both PolitiFact.com and FactCheck.org have run to ground assorted non-citizenship rumors, finding them false. The “noble truth,” said White House press secretary Robert Gibbs, is that
Obama was born in Hawaii.
Still, some Web sites champion the few military men who have filed lawsuits claiming that Obama is not the lawful commander in chief. They make heroes of the few members of Congress who have gotten in on the act.
Rep. Bill Posey, Republican of Florida, introduced a bill that would require future presidential candidates to submit their birth certificates. Nine House Republicans have joined Posey’s cause. Like Liz Cheney, most say they personally think Obama is a U.S. citizen, but that this requirement will head off questions in the future. Wink, wink.
Now I want my country back.
marsha.mercer@yahoo.com
© 2009 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Health care RX depends on trust -- July 16, 2009 column
By MARSHA MERCER
As Congress struggles over various health-care reform proposals, a lot of numbers get thrown around.
Health care is a $2.5 trillion industry, one-sixth of the U.S. economy. Reform could cost upwards of a trillion dollars over 10 years. An estimated 50 million people lack health insurance, and 17 million could remain uninsured after reform.
Here’s a number that may trump the others: 93.
That’s the percentage of Americans who say it’s extremely or very important that their health plan cover any medical test or treatment they and their doctor think necessary, according to the latest USA Today-Gallup poll, released Tuesday.
The near unanimity of opinion says that the health care debate is fundamentally about trust. Can people trust that President Obama’s revamped system will allow them to have all the tests and treatments they believe necessary? Or should people trust Republican opponents who argue that reform will limit access to health care?
In the trust battle, both sides have ammunition. Congressional Republicans have an edge in worries that President Obama’s $787 billion economic stimulus package may not work. If the behemoth stimulus is a debacle, as some critics already claim, will a huge health-care overhaul be one too?
The president has the advantage of the bully pulpit, which he used this week to make the case for trust indirectly. In Michigan, he claimed the troubled economy as his own and leveled with auto workers that their jobs aren’t coming back due to changes in the economy. At the White House, nurses, a group everybody trusts, stood with him as he prodded Congress on health-care reform.
In Michigan, Obama was responding to critics who complain that he’s still blaming his predecessor for the nation’s economic woes.
“I love these folks who helped get us in this mess and then suddenly say, `Well this is Obama’s economy.’ That’s fine. Give it to me. My job is to solve problems, not to stand on the sidelines and harp and gripe,” he said.
In the Rose Garden, Obama stressed that the status quo in health care is unsustainable and cannot continue. He noted that the American Nurses Association, with 2.9 million members, supports a public insurance plan option as an alternative to private health insurance.
“Nurses aren’t in health care to get rich. Last I checked, they’re in it to care for all of us, from the time they bring a new life into this world to the moment they ease the pain of those who pass from it,” he said.
And he said, “few understand why we have to pass reform as intimately as our nation’s nurses.” Nurses often have to “buck up” patients and young medical residents, and now it’s time to buck up the Senate and House to pass reform before the August recess, he said.
When Gallup asked people whom they trust most to make changes in health care, 45 percent said doctors and hospitals. One third trusted Obama and congressional Democrats, hardly a ringing endorsement. They fared well, however, compared with congressional Republicans who gained the trust of just 10 percent. Only 4 percent said they trusted insurance companies most.
Obama suggested that those who support the status quo on health care are really backing insurance companies, whose premiums over the last decade have risen three times faster than wages.
Republicans argue that reform not only will limit access to medical care but will kill jobs, raise taxes and lead to a government takeover of health care – so what’s the rush?
Here’s Rep. Joe Barton, Republican of Texas, Tuesday on the House Democrats’ bill, “Their bill kills health care as we know it in America today.”
Those are strong words, and Obama continues to reassure people that people who like their doctors and health insurance will be able to keep both, and they’ll actually pay less. Reform will reduce costs, raise quality and make insurance companies treat people fairly, Obama says, and it will include an optional public plan.
The president and the Democrats in Congress have the numbers to pass a health-care overhaul without Republican support. But reform is about more than numbers. This battle is for the people’s trust.
(Marsha Mercer is an independent columnist writing from Washington. You can contact her at marsha.mercer@yahoo.com)
© 2009 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.
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As Congress struggles over various health-care reform proposals, a lot of numbers get thrown around.
Health care is a $2.5 trillion industry, one-sixth of the U.S. economy. Reform could cost upwards of a trillion dollars over 10 years. An estimated 50 million people lack health insurance, and 17 million could remain uninsured after reform.
Here’s a number that may trump the others: 93.
That’s the percentage of Americans who say it’s extremely or very important that their health plan cover any medical test or treatment they and their doctor think necessary, according to the latest USA Today-Gallup poll, released Tuesday.
The near unanimity of opinion says that the health care debate is fundamentally about trust. Can people trust that President Obama’s revamped system will allow them to have all the tests and treatments they believe necessary? Or should people trust Republican opponents who argue that reform will limit access to health care?
In the trust battle, both sides have ammunition. Congressional Republicans have an edge in worries that President Obama’s $787 billion economic stimulus package may not work. If the behemoth stimulus is a debacle, as some critics already claim, will a huge health-care overhaul be one too?
The president has the advantage of the bully pulpit, which he used this week to make the case for trust indirectly. In Michigan, he claimed the troubled economy as his own and leveled with auto workers that their jobs aren’t coming back due to changes in the economy. At the White House, nurses, a group everybody trusts, stood with him as he prodded Congress on health-care reform.
In Michigan, Obama was responding to critics who complain that he’s still blaming his predecessor for the nation’s economic woes.
“I love these folks who helped get us in this mess and then suddenly say, `Well this is Obama’s economy.’ That’s fine. Give it to me. My job is to solve problems, not to stand on the sidelines and harp and gripe,” he said.
In the Rose Garden, Obama stressed that the status quo in health care is unsustainable and cannot continue. He noted that the American Nurses Association, with 2.9 million members, supports a public insurance plan option as an alternative to private health insurance.
“Nurses aren’t in health care to get rich. Last I checked, they’re in it to care for all of us, from the time they bring a new life into this world to the moment they ease the pain of those who pass from it,” he said.
And he said, “few understand why we have to pass reform as intimately as our nation’s nurses.” Nurses often have to “buck up” patients and young medical residents, and now it’s time to buck up the Senate and House to pass reform before the August recess, he said.
When Gallup asked people whom they trust most to make changes in health care, 45 percent said doctors and hospitals. One third trusted Obama and congressional Democrats, hardly a ringing endorsement. They fared well, however, compared with congressional Republicans who gained the trust of just 10 percent. Only 4 percent said they trusted insurance companies most.
Obama suggested that those who support the status quo on health care are really backing insurance companies, whose premiums over the last decade have risen three times faster than wages.
Republicans argue that reform not only will limit access to medical care but will kill jobs, raise taxes and lead to a government takeover of health care – so what’s the rush?
Here’s Rep. Joe Barton, Republican of Texas, Tuesday on the House Democrats’ bill, “Their bill kills health care as we know it in America today.”
Those are strong words, and Obama continues to reassure people that people who like their doctors and health insurance will be able to keep both, and they’ll actually pay less. Reform will reduce costs, raise quality and make insurance companies treat people fairly, Obama says, and it will include an optional public plan.
The president and the Democrats in Congress have the numbers to pass a health-care overhaul without Republican support. But reform is about more than numbers. This battle is for the people’s trust.
(Marsha Mercer is an independent columnist writing from Washington. You can contact her at marsha.mercer@yahoo.com)
© 2009 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.
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