the health bill and our food industry

My husband Matt and I said jokingly the other day that the real solution to our health care problems would be to put a sin tax on Doritos. But apparently Michael Pollan thought of the same thing--and he was serious. He wrote a great piece in which he argues that forbidding insurance companies to drop people from care could be a powerful incentive to change our food subsidies. Because it would mean that for the first time since the corn revolution, there would be a powerful, monied group that had an interest in keeping people healthy. And the simplest way to do that is to improve our diet by dropping corn subsidies and decentralizing our food industry so we eat more local food. And if that were the only accomplishment of this bill, it might be worth it just for that.