Subsidizing both the Treatment and Cause of Type II Diabetes

From Michael Pollan’s Op Ed in the NY Times:

And so the government is poised to go on encouraging America’s fast-food diet with its farm policies even as it takes on added responsibilities for covering the medical costs of that diet. To put it more bluntly, the government is putting itself in the uncomfortable position of subsidizing both the costs of treating Type 2 diabetes and the consumption of high-fructose corn syrup.

Holly and I had this discussion last week.  The high cost of health care in this country is linked to obesity, and our federal government is encouraging obesity with farm policy.

We’re spending $147 billion to treat obesity, $116 billion to treat diabetes, and hundreds of billions more to treat cardiovascular disease and the many types of cancer that have been linked to the so-called Western diet.