Pat Political: Public Health

My Issues

A Real Health Cae System for Vermont
Vermont needs a single-payer, universal Health Care system financed by an income tax on all income generated in Vemont.
Biomass Fuel
We need a biomass fuel economy in Vermont, with hemp grown for vegetable diesel fuel and waste vegetation fermented for ethanol. Biomass fuel is a triple win for Vermont. It will cut the pollution of petroleum products, provide the basis for many local businesses, and cut the cost of oil and gasoline in half.
Education
I want to see Vemont schools today as good as were the one-room schools of sixty years ago.
Electoral reform
We need IRV for instate voting and proportional allocation in the Electoral College. IRV offers Vermonters the best way to indicate their full preferences and at the same time to keep elections within the electoral process.
Taxes
Taxes shouldn't be "high" or "low", but what is required to pay for what we need, and should be on real wealth.

November 2005

October 21, 2005

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Public Health

One of my sons and his wife just returned from a two week trip to Europe. One thing that surprised them was that although they certainly ate well while they were away, they both lost weight. They are sure that it was because they did so much walking.

And suddenly this got me to thinking about how much corporate business success has resulted in increasing public bad health.

TVs, for instance. TVs first came on the market right after WWII. My husband was against them, did not think they belonged in a household with growing children, and so we were just about the only family around which didn't get one. Even my parents finally did, and I have to say honestly that one of the joys of visiting Grandma and Grandpa was that my children could watch TV. My children were thoroughly rationed with their TV and it really shocked me to see how many hours their friends began to spend in front of it. And today's children are even more sedentary in their habits...

And how about cars. The tremendous success of the auto companies in marketing the personal auto to us has resulted in our abandoning walking. We jump into our cars to do errands only a short walking distance away. Walking has become one of the conscious forms of exercise and not the normal way of getting from one place to another.

But most shocking to me is the ease with which we have given our children over to the marketing efforts of corporate business. Go down your super market aisles and count the number of sweetened cereals on the shelves. And the snack beverages, the fruit juices and fruit flavored juices and the sodas with their high carbohydrate content. The snack foods loaded with both high carbohydrates and fats.

And we are surprised that we have an epidemic of childhood obesity, not to mention so many heart attacks and increasing diabetes among us elders.

We talk about the need for a public health system, and then worry about how we can pay for it. Shouldn't all these corporations which make so much profit from tempting us away from good health habits help pay for their bad effects? And I am not exempting individuals from their personal responsibility in consuming these snacks. A health tax should be levied on all of them, say 10%, to begin to pay for the health problems which will follow/

October 21, 2005 in Just talking | Permalink

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Pat Political

Plenty of bad things these days. I saw the start of a lot of them. Here's what I know. We'll talk about what we can do.

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October 21, 2005

Public Health

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