Some of you may know that one of the reasons I am so concerned about food is the part it plays in chronic disease epidemics. Thanks to Wyatt Cenac on The Daily Show for calling out not big business, in this case, but “big association.” All I can do is echo Wyatt on this one – WTF?!
And thanks to my public policy class, I have fancy terminology to explain what happened to HR 3472 – like a lack of “softening up” the interest groups, a lack of a “policy window,” and, oh yeah, a bounty of totally corrupt capitalism!! Rrrrarrr!!!
According to www.opencongress.org, it looks like the bill tried and failed back in 2009. Here’s the official summary below. I am not yet a skilled enough policy analyst to figure out what was really going on here. For all I know, it could have just been a really inefficient bill. But one reading from class (the Epilogue to John Kingdon’s 2nd edition of Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies* – Health Care Reform in the Clinton and Obama Administrations) opened my eyes to the number of players at the health table in politics (and the complexity of their relationships and bargaining systems).
“7/31/2009–Introduced.Requires a group health plan, and a health insurance issuer offering group health insurance coverage in the group market or health insurance coverage in the individual market, for plan years beginning on or after January 1, 2010, to provide premium discounts for healthy behavior and improvements toward healthy behavior. Requires the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), acting through the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), to conclude a rulemaking procedure to determine the appropriate premium discount applicable to each healthy behavior and each improvement toward healthy behavior. Describes “healthy behavior” (and improvements toward such behavior) as indicated by factors related to smoking, blood pressure, body mass index, lipoprotein levels, and hemoglobin A1c levels. Requires any healthy behavior or improvement toward healthy behavior to be supported by medical test result information which is certified by a licensed physician, and the individual to whom it relates, as being complete, accurate, and current. Imposes civil penalties for false certifications.”
As a side note, I did look up the websites of all three associations Wyatt calls out–The American Diabetes Association, The American Cancer Society, and The American Heart Association. They all include preventive tips (including exercise) on their websites.
Let me know when you figure this one out?
* Note: I wish I could post the pdf of this epilogue so you could read it, but that would be totally illegal, which seems counterproductive to my whole reason for taking the policy class. So. You can use the library?
