“… the most creative steps under way in America at any level of the political process.”
Republican Governor Mike Huckabee takes on one of our biggest challenges …
Today’s Kristof Column:
In 2003, Mike Huckabee, the governor of Arkansas, learned he had type 2 diabetes.
His doctor told him he would probably be dead in 10 years — and that terrified him enough to start exercising, eschew sugar and lose about 110 pounds (at 5 feet 11 inches, he’s now 180 pounds). His first attempts at jogging left him dizzy after a few hundred yards, but now he is running marathons.
That would be a nice, inspiring tale if it ended there, but instead it has been the starting point. Mr. Huckabee has become a health care policy wonk, and with the help of national experts he has begun a series of clever initiatives to fight obesity. They are among the most creative steps under way in America at any level of the political process.
Arkansas has become a national laboratory for using policy levers to try to encourage healthier lifestyles. Other states and the federal government should adopt the same steps — like curbing soft drinks in schools, informing all parents of their children’s body mass index as a step to encouraging fitness, giving exercise breaks as well as smoking breaks, paying for preventive health checks like mammograms and prostate examinations, subsidizing efforts to quit smoking and seeking to give food stamps more purchasing power when they are used to buy fruits or vegetables…
So if our government wants to keep our children safe, it doesn’t just have to go after terrorists in Afghanistan. It also has to go after Twinkies at home.
Mr. Huckabee, the current chairman of the National Governors Association, is a conservative Republican (and a potential candidate for president in 2008), with whom I disagree on just about everything. But he’s doing more to safeguard the lives of his constituents than just about any politician in the country. And it makes financial sense….
Repeatedly, Mr. Huckabee came back to the same argument: Obesity is reducing not only the quality of life of Americans, but also the fiscal soundness of our government and the competitiveness of our businesses.
“This year, G.M. will spend more on health care for employees and pensioners than on steel,” Mr. Huckabee noted. “Starbucks will spend more on health care than on coffee beans.”
Another issue we should be able to come together on.
You’re certainly right about that. It’s just too bad that people in general, all poiltical stripes and walks of life, have to wait until tragedy strikes them personally… James and Mrs. Brady get religion on gun control after Jim gets shot ….. all of a sudden stem cell research is OK after RR gets Alzheimers … I know there are plenty of examples of Dems doing the same thing… and regular people becomming activists when it happens to them or a member of their family. Too bad we all can’t realize alll these things effect all of us sooner or later and we need to put partisan politics and self interest aside and deal with our common problems ….
Right you are. Poor and convenient memory sets in.
Over 700,000 die of heart attacks each year and we accept it as normal. It doesn’t have to be. New therapies will help but there is much that you can do on your own. You can see the difference in healthwise attitudes when you go from the east to California. Californians are impressively healthwise.
On a similar note, the farther we get from 9/11 without another attack on the homeland, more people are convincing themselves that there really isn’t a war on terror, it’s in the mind of the administration, etc. I’m convinced that it will take another attack here to set these people, predominantly liberals, straight.
I think liberals are as conscientious and concerned as anybody about another terrorist attack.. There’s a difference of opinion concerning how to go about preventing it. I myself believe that invading Iraq was a collosal mistake that only served to make things worse and help create more animosity ergo more terrorists. Check out this article from the International Herald Tribune.
On another note, Each passing day the conservatives take more and more stabs at the 9/11 families.
they hate the 9/11 families and they hate America
they only use 9/11 as a political ploy as demonstrated by their disrespect and utter contempt for those who died on that day and their families.
But then conservatives also gave us Timothy McVeigh and Eric Robert Randolph.
Then to top it off they show up with Rev Fred Phelps to protest funerals honoring the fallen soldiers.
Sick Sick Sick! Conservatives are nothing but Traitors and Friends of Bin Laden
Now, now ….
Dan Are you saying the Right wing Pundits are not trashing the 9/11 families?
Thanks for posting this important story. You can learn more about Mike Huckabee at http://www.mikehuckabeepresident2008.blogspot.com
Thanks!
Give me an example ….
(Not that I’d put it past them)
Dan, please don’t humor the troll.
You guys should be nice…
Tried. Doesn’t work.
Looks perfectly straight to me. Of course, I’m also the type of person who allegedly [ahem! allegedly] agree with everything.
Forgive ME, but more about the subject, please!! You are going away from the topic too frequently, therefore it is uneasy to read your posts.
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