Here's what I think- public health is the government's business because our government already pays a huge chunk of change for health care, and it looks like it will be paying more soon. That means the health of the nation is tangled up already with the budget of the government. To save money public health organs, like hospitals, should encourage healthy living- and they should be mandated to so encourage their patients, imo.
It is a mother's choice to put cola in her babies bottle as well (and there's no law against it), but I'm for mandates that at public health clinics they discourage that sort of thing, and certainly that they never hand out sodas for mothers to put in bottles- even though that's perfectly legal.
Do I want stupid parenting and bad parenting criminalized, wrt nutrition? No. But the stakes are high on this one. Formula and diabetes, formula and soy ester early sexual development, formula and allergy problems- these are not small problems, and on top of that breast milk is free. Not to mention the horrible way the WIC program is set up. I hadn't realized they make more money, and become a bigger program, the more coupons they give to mothers which are redeemed. The WIC program- which hands out formula vouchers- gets 85% of the cost of formula back from the corporations which make formula, but only if the vouchers are redeemed. Talk about having government involved on the wrong side of the fence! Kudos to Brumar for finding this one. I had no idea WIC was as big or as bad as it is. Horribly structured program.
So that's what I think. |
