WICHITA, Kan. - As President Obama prepares for the bipartisan healthcare summit on Thursday, and in light of the increasingly uncertain future of current healthcare reform efforts in Congress, I thought it might be worthwhile to point out two policy areas that, while not seeming to be directly connected to healthcare, would, were they to be dealt with effectively, have a substantial impact on healthcare costs and effects in this country. We could call this, "how to deal with healthcare without dealing with healthcare."
The first is food policy, and the second is transportation policy. The relation of these to healthcare is evinced by a recent Newsweek article on heart disease, in which both were mentioned. I would venture to say that with the exception of quitting smoking, no two factors would have a larger impact on heart disease than these.
