Paul Krugman* manages to turn obesity into a partisan issue. See here. Those big, evil corporations are conspiring to keep us (and particularly our children) fat. I'm glad that Krugman wrote this column about obesity, because it focuses a spotlight on a serious problem. Krugman and other egalitarian liberals want a single-payer health-care system in which the link between what one pays for health care and the quantity and quality of health care one receives is severed. Think about it. Obesity is already recognized as a disease. Not a vice, not a symptom of weakness, not a character flaw—a disease, like tuberculosis or cancer. Imagine how much health-care costs will rise to treat this "disease." There are far more "diseases" now then ever before, and the list keeps growing. Even alcoholism is viewed as a disease in many quarters (instead of the way of life that it is). There's a drug for just about every ailment, real or imagined. If we nationalize health care, nobody will think twice about getting the very best (and most expensive) treatment, including drugs. In effect, the healthy will be subsidizing the sick. (When you tax something, you get less of it. When you subsidize something, you get more of it.) And since health is to a large extent within one's control, the responsible will be subsidizing the irresponsible. I'm sorry; it sounds like a nightmare to me. The only nationalized health-care program I could support (which isn't to say I support one) is one that makes a clear distinction between ailments for which one is responsible and ailments for which one is not responsible. Obesity, like alcoholism, falls in the former category.
* "Op-Ed columnist Paul Krugman has the disturbing habit of shaping, slicing and selectively citing numbers in a fashion that pleases his acolytes but leaves him open to substantive assaults" (Daniel Okrent, "13 Things I Meant to Write About but Never Did," The New York Times, 22 May 2005).