Michelle Obama is demanding that Americans eat healthier. In a way, this makes sense. If government is to fully control medical care, and pay for all of it, then it’s responsible and logical for government to force people to become healthier. (Careful what you wish for America! Now you’ve got it.)
The question is: How will government make this happen? Allow me to make a few suggestions:
Set up federal and regional “food management centers.” Call them FMCs for short, kind of like the DMV for cars. Require all citizens to show up at these FMCs every two years, for basic health checks — weight, cholesterol levels, blood pressure levels, that sort of thing. Based on a carefully crafted government formula, the amount of unhealthy foods and kinds of foods you’ll be allowed to eat will be determined based on this government checkup. You’ll receive a rating of, let’s say, A/B/C/D/F based on your level of health. The health rating will determine what kind of foods you’ll be allowed to buy at the store. Grocery stores, by the way, will, by this time, be run by the government. How can government control what you eat unless it controls the flow and supply of food? When you show up at the grocery store with a two-year A rating, you’ll be allowed to buy considerable quantities of candy and potato chips, so long as you buy government-required amounts of healthier foods. If you have a C rating, you’ll buy less junk food. And if you have an F rating, well just forget about buying anything tasty. And don’t think of buying yummy food on the illegal black market, either. If you thought the War on Drugs was fierce, wait until you see the federally established War on Junk Food. Led by an army of Michelle Obama wannabes, this Army of Goodness and Nutritional Virtue will make you into a healthy and happy person whether you like it or not.
Sick to your stomach yet? Then consider the fact that about a third of the country would probably actually vote for this idea right now. All we need is another economic meltdown and a favorable election year for liberal Democrats, and then it’s in place. Maybe not in 2010, but maybe in 2012 or 2014. By then, the practice of medicine will be under the control of the federal government, because ObamaCare (if not repealed) will have destroyed all private health insurance by then, and private insurance is the only thing keeping Medicare and hospitals as we know them (barely) in business. We’ll all be on Medicare, doctors will be paid 30-50 percent less than they are now and work totally for the government, and hospitals (now bankrupt) will be run entirely by the federal government, the same people who brought us the post office–only it will be much worse than the post office. If this doesn’t describe a scenario where junk food might be your only remaining comfort, then I don’t know what does.
If you don’t want something like this to be your future, then you had better vote first to repeal Obama (the wife too), and then repeal all the ideas, policies and attitudes which made him possible.