What Passes For Healthy Debate These Days

[Posted by reader_iam]

(Quotes from this article.)

"Frankly, Michael Moore is an example of why the health care system costs so much in this country. He clearly is one of the reasons that we have a very expensive system. I know that from my own personal experience," said Huckabee, who lost more than 110 pounds and became an avid runner after he was diagnosed with diabetes.

"I know how much more my health care cost when I didn't take care of myself than when I do take care of myself, not only in terms of doctor visits but regular diseases, illnesses, chronic things that come up, monthly prescription bills," Huckabee said. "All of those things have gone dramatically down since I've taken care of myself and worked to live a healthier lifestyle."
...
"Looks like Mike Huckabee is auditioning for some insurance company dough, since he's raised just about no money and sparked zero interest since jumping into the race," O'Hara said in a response provided by Moore's production office. "I wonder what the good governor would say to the French, who drink more, smoke more, eat more cheese and still live longer than us despite paying less for health care?"
...
"Let me ask you, have you ever met anybody when they were really sick say, 'Oh my gosh, I have a desperate disease. Get me to Havana, I've got to have the best health care in the world,'" Huckabee said.
...
"Anything we could do to help steer people to healthier habits comes back to us many times over and that's a real focus that needs to happen," Huckabee said.

"Right now, insurance companies will pay $100,000 or more for a quadruple bypass but wouldn't pay a couple hundred dollars for a person to have nutrition counseling and maybe to work with an exercise physiologist to determine how to get those extra pounds off. ... It's a lot better to spend some more money on the prevention side than it is on the intervention side."
...
"No wonder the Republicans are in such trouble - their entire plan to fix the health care system in this country is to tell people to lose weight," [O'Hara] said. "Maybe if Mike Huckabee and his Republican friends stopped sucking up to health-insurance campaign contributors they wouldn't feel the need to blame Americans for this crisis. Just because he stopped eating Twinkies by the bushel doesn't make that an outline for a national health care plan.

"There's nothing worse than a reformed smoker - or Twinkie eater for that matter - preaching conversion." [OT Aside: Is O'Hara inadvertently decrying health nag-and-nanny-ism here? Wow, what irony--but that's a whole other subject.]