An Argument for Health Care as an Economic Driver

By 2014, if all goes well, we should have something that resembles national health care.  This may mean that millions of people who have suffered in the pool of 17.7% of Americans in the United States without health insurance, may suddenly be seeking care for everything from anxiety to obesity and beyond.

In Rhode Island, this would be a welcome relief from the recent trends in health care in terms of numbers of people with insurance.  The recent trends, according to the Rhode Island Health Commissioner’s office, are that between 2005 and 2010, the number of insured people in Rhode Island dropped by 65,000.  In 2005, there were about 620,000 people insured by the three big insurers, BCBSRI, United, and Tufts, and in 2010 this number had dropped to about 555,000.  During that same time, there was a modest increase in the number of people receiving either Rite Care and Rite Share.  If you look at the study cited below issued in January of 2011 from the Rhode Island Senate Fiscal Office, you will see that in 2009 and 2010, there was a significant amount of stimulus money that was used to cover the costs of the growing Rite Care and Rite Share programs — $35.2 million in 2009, $56.8 million in 2010, and $56.5 million in 2011.

Now, let’s give it some thought.  Let’s just say Obamacare goes through.  Could it be possible that part of the growing economy can be the growing health care provisions that are made for those nearly 50 million people who are newly insured?  Could neighborhoods in South Providence, downtown Woonsocket, and Eden Park Cranston all begin to flourish with new health care providers serving the throngs of people flocking in for health care?  Statistically, the uninsured are more likely to be obese, smokers, and drinkers, so there are plenty of preventative care issues that could be addressed with could treatment plans.

So instead of giving $75 million to Curt Schilling and betting on the idea that we need another MMOG video game on the internet where people will waste time being sedentary and eating junk food while they try to climb inane hierarchies, perhaps we should think about ways that government can promote health care businesses that will likely be in great demand in the very near future.

Link to the report on Privately Insured Rhode Islanders

Link to report on RITE Care and RITE Share Insured Rhode Islanders

Bursting With Food Energy

That’s the kind of copy advertising agents would put on a box of candy-coated cereal before they realized that even the American public knows ‘food energy’ is another word for ‘calories’.

‘Extreme’– a manly word, still works. MacDonald’s sold a lot of ‘Double Down’ sandwiches by appealing to our inner ‘bad boy’. The Jack in the Box Bacon Milkshake sounds like an idea whose time has come.


If you guessed a thousand calories, you’re guessing low. I love it that most of the ingredients are not found in nature. ‘Whipped topping’?

I start the ‘ShapeUpRI’ weight loss study on Monday. I went to a meeting last night and there– placed on each chair– were the dreaded books. Like in the TRIM study, we’re going to record every calorie we eat. With a bacon shake and a bunch of celery, I’ll be good for a week.

Fat Rats?

Sean, a nurse who blogs at My Strong Medicine cites some studies showing that lab animals, and even feral rats are getting bigger decade by decade.

From the dawn of time, rats eat everything they can find and spend the rest of their time scurrying. So, is it something in the water?

If it were just kids, we could blame obesity on the cutbacks in phys-ed classes, school vending machines that sell high-calorie junk, and the substitution of videogames for kickball. If it were just adults, we could blame obesity on supersizing, fast-food meals, and pedestrian-unfriendly towns that force everyone into a car. But while 68 percent of American adults qualify as overweight or obese, and 17 percent of children do (compared with 5 percent in 1971), there are other increasingly pudgy populations. Meet some overweight pets, lab animals, and even urban rats.

Follow this link to Newsweek for the rest of the story.

Weight control is a multi-factor challenge. Willpower and physical activity are key. Still, human nature hasn’t changed since the 1970’s, and the rat-infested alleys haven’t changed the lifestyles of the rats infesting them.

It took a long time for society to figure out what cigarettes do to the body. This will take longer, because it’s not going to come down to one bad chemical in the environment, but complicated interactions between diet, lifestyle, demographics and microbiology. What a mess. I’m going to put this netbook down and wash some dishes, and burn a few calories while I’m at it.


Are we just losing our willpower year by year?
























He Fought the Donuts, and the Donuts Won

Wow, is it a conspiracy? Synchronicity? A mere coincidence?

As Rhode Island reels from the epic clash between Tim Hortons and marriage equality, a doctor takes on the doughnut industry, and is crushed beneath its massive girth.


Pensacola is now minus a doctor and donuts rule.