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The Left is hysterical over the prospect of a Trump administration in charge of the nation’s health policy.
But life expectancy in the U.S. peaked in 2014 and has been shrinking nearly every year since then, an indicator that Americans’ health is declining. This is despite the trillions spent covering the uninsured. Expanding insurance is not the panacea it was promised to be.
A shakeup is needed.
Here’s what should be on the Trump agenda:
1. Focus on Healthy Eating to Combat Chronic Diseases
President-elect Donald Trump’s controversial health advisor, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is targeting unhealthy eating, particularly processed foods.
He’s on to something. Findings in the journal Nature/Food suggest that switching from an unhealthy diet to a healthy one can add 8.9 years to a 40-year-old man’s life expectancy, and 8.6 years to a 40-year-old woman’s.
Anti-smoking campaigns reduced smoking from 40% of the adult population in 1969 to 11% today. The same can probably be done for eating.
2. End Mission Confusion at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
That’s the advice of Trump’s inner health circle, including Drs. Scott Gottlieb and Joel Zinberg.
The agency now focuses on woke issues. Meanwhile, it flubbed its response to the biggest disease threat of our lifetimes, COVID-19, as I documented in my book “The Next Pandemic.”
The CDC’s unscientific guidelines on masking, social distancing, and vaccines were the basis for draconian assaults on people’s right to assemble and to keep their businesses open. Americans should be relieved to hear RFK Jr. swear it will never happen again.
A CDC shakeup is also needed to reduce hospital infections, which kill more people (75,000 a year) than breast cancer.
If a previous occupant of a hospital bed had an infection, the risk that the next patient gets it soars 583% per Columbia School of Nursing research. Inadequate cleaning is the reason.
Yet instead of imposing rigorous cleaning standards, the CDC helps hospitals hide outbreaks from the public. You don’t want to be in a hospital overrun with a deadly germ, but the CDC calls it “hospital A,” preventing you from knowing.
It’s an example of the cozy relationship between health companies and the government that RFK Jr. claims he wants to clean up.
3. Make Insurance Affordable
The price of health coverage — $25,500 for a family of four — is one of the public’s top worries, according to Pew Research.
The expansion of Medicaid to 80 million during the last decade is partly to blame.
Medicaid shortchanges hospitals, paying them 88 cents for every dollar of care delivered.
Hospitals keep profits up by shifting unpaid Medicaid costs onto patients who get coverage through a job or buy it themselves. The bigger Medicaid gets, the higher premiums go.
Republicans intend to rein in Medicaid enrollment, which will help anyone who pays for insurance.
Affordable Care Act rules require individuals to buy a long list of “essential” benefits. It’s like telling car buyers their only choice is a fully loaded SUV. Some car buyers just want wheels.
Trump will allow more affordable plans, as he did in his first term — before President Joe Biden barred them.
4. Close the Border and Tighten Security
This health policy will yield the fastest results, halting the influx of contagious diseases, alleviating the crush of migrants in ERs, and interrupting the flow of fentanyl.
Drug deaths alone are cutting U.S. life expectancy by two-thirds of a year.
When a young addict is arrested or overdoses, desperate family members often fork over life savings to unscrupulous addiction “recovery” outfits.
RFK Jr. is proposing a network of public “healing farms” where people struggling with addiction can go, try to heal themselves, and obtain skills for a sober life. Any parent who’s gone through this with a child will say, “What have we got to lose?”
Also, the public’s worries about RFK Jr.’s vaccine views are likely overblown. Mandated vaccinations have enabled the U.S. to defeat polio, measles, and other diseases.
RFK Jr. said this week, “We’re not going to take vaccines away from anybody.”
But you don’t have to take his word. Neither RFK Jr. nor Trump will have the power to eliminate childhood vaccinations. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1905 that states have the authority to require vaccinations or not. Each state has its own vaccine mandates. During COVID-19, the court affirmed that, striking down Biden’s proposed national vaccine mandate on employees of large companies.
All in all, the Left is frantically defending a public health status quo that offers $25,000 premiums for family health coverage, declining lifespans, junk food, coverups of hospital dangers, and unpreparedness for the next germ threat.
Trump’s health advisors insist we can do better. I agree.
Betsy McCaughey is a former lieutenant governor of New York and chairman of the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths. Follow her on Twitter @Betsy_McCaughey. To find out more about Betsy McCaughey and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website.
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The question is will President Trump listen to health care experts like his former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb or some knucklehead who makes up health care advise to fit his own theories ?
Agree that more affordable options are needed under Obamacare but the companies offering those plans need to be screened to make sure that they have sufficient reserves to cover their liabilities and that their plans cover their member’s costs without any surprise balance billings.
Definitely agree with paragraphs 3 and 4 of this article. Health care insurance is outrageous for most Americans. I have a granddaughter that needs a hysterectomy and can’t get insurance to pay for it, but insurances will cover the cost of transgender operations with no problem. UNFAIR. The Border needs secured, and the laws properly enforced to prevent criminals, drugs and disease carrying persons from entering. There remains much cleanup to be done because of the Biden’s administration antics of ignoring the law.
Very good article Betsy. What is needed is responsible thought and responsible acts by all in the health/medical profession. That idea of ending mission confusion at the CDC is a great idea as it gets to the improvement of leadership in public health – ethical matters need to be taken seriously there.
“The Left is hysterical”. In my experiences and as a witness over the past 60-plus years, ANYTIME one hears or reads such words means that it’s GOOD for Americans! MAGA / MAHA
When I moved to this small town 3 years ago, I found one of the retail superstores for groceries until I could get my gardens planted. Aisle after aisle of junk–pure junk–and the customers filled their carts with it. Other local grocery stores also had their share of candy, carbs, carbonated beverages, and convenience foods, but people seem to be smarter shoppers there. As more people move here from other states, the demand increases for more wholesome foods.
Before moving to this state a decade ago, I lived in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. for 30 years. Many of my customers were born in foreign countries and worked in D.C. At that time, the greens they wanted were not available, so they asked me to grow the plants for them. Since I wanted to sell the excess, I learned how to incorporate those vegetables into what I usually cook and to come up with new recipes. A year later, my a1C had dropped more than a whole point, and I actually felt better. Not that I had a bad diet before that, but I did cut down even more of the carbs and started eating a lot more greens (especially the brassicas–cruciferous plants), and more fish, unsalted nuts, and berries. Now, I’m not a purist… I do enjoy chocolate and homemade cookies for the holidays…and leftover Halloween Butterfingers.
A few months after settling in, I registered my small agricultural business with the state and started selling culinary herbs, greens, vegetables (transplants and cut produce), and other plants at local farmers’ markets. My handouts explain the virtues of a primarily plant-based diet and how to grow and use the greens (but, ultimately, it’s your choice). There is nothing more rewarding than hearing a customer say she is going to clean up her family’s diet because she had spoken with me. Growing the greens and vegetables ourselves offers so many benefits, including eating pesticide-free foods, saving money on groceries, eliminating waste (just pick what you need for the day), and getting some exercise in the fresh air.
That’s what I think is sorely lacking in the health care industry–someone to spend the time with a patient and offer a few simple suggestions that can go a long way toward a healthier life. I’m so pleased President Trump and Robert F Kennedy will deliver on that promise. This is a great improvement over the very expensive pharmaceutical and surgical solutions most doctors prefer to give us. Our bad habits are catching up with us, and that, too, drives up the cost of Medicare and insurance. A really good website I visit is: nutrition facts dot org (no spaces, . for dot). With all sorts of chronic illnesses on both sides of my family, making the effort with diet and exercise so far has spared me the discomfort, physical limitations, and endless trips to the doctors.
There should be a mandate for schools to teach HEALTH, which involves proper nutrition from natural foods, proper hygiene, and basic daily vitamin supplementation, so parents can also be educated. Better yet, is to have a form for parents to fill out if their kids are eating the right food guide, better hygiene habits and basic Vitamin supplementation. I went to a Catholic school in the Philippines who taught these and I am now 86 yrs. old and still healthy. Thanks to my basic training in health, my husband who is now 89 yrs. old is still healthy too. RFK Jr. can try implementing this.