Health Care Financing and Reform Challenges

Special interests have more to lose than to gain from any shift in the tectonic plates that support the current approach to health care delivery in the United States. Machiavelli explained that those with something to lose are more highly motivated than those with something to gain from change. Machiavelli predated Adam Smith's economics explanation of the same phenomenon in terms of diminishing returns to scale: the marginal value of a loss is always greater than the marginal value of an equal quantity of gain.
In a perfect world, health care reform would start with eliminating subsidies for growing corn. Corn subsidies enable hydrogenated oils that are full of saturated fats and enable widespread use of corn syrup to sweeten nearly everything we eat or drink.
It wouldn't take much research to figure out that french fries, soda pop, and chips have added twenty pounds to the average American in the past forty years. Other fast foods added another ten to twenty pounds.
Step One: President Obama needs to select a charismatic Surgeon General to get Americans to eat at home, recognize the consequences of fried food, and promote alternatives to french fries and soda pop.
Step Two: President Obama needs to select a charismatic National Fitness Champion to promote healthy eating, exercise, and ways to pursue a more active lifestyle.
Step Three: Michelle Obama needs to get more attention for her efforts to grow vegetables, select raw ingrediants, and spend more time at home in meal preparation as part of a healthy life style.