Fat Is Not Your Fault? Huh?

We have become the blameless society.  Nothing is ever your fault.

“I didn’t get the job.  But it’s not my fault the interviewer didn’t like me”

“Yes, I hit the tree.  But it’s not my fault the car just drove right off the road”

“I ran a company into the ground.  But it’s not my fault!  Now where’s my bailout money?”

Now we have a new diet plan:

The Fat Is Not Your Fault diet.  No, really.  Check it out here.

The whole premise of the diet plan seems to be that diet and exercise are not the key components of a weight loss plan.  There are “other” factors just as, if not more, important.  Of course you have to buy the plan to find out what those “other” factors are.

The program seems to have been designed by a real doctor, so I’m sure there’s alot of medical “evidence” backing the claims.

What’s next? The Wish Away Obesity diet?

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Join The An Apple A Day Health Care Plan

Did you know that health care costs in the United States will top $2.2 trillion for the year 2009???

That’s over $7,100 per person!

Let me preface my discussion with the ardent fact that I am not one of those descendants of Truman era health reform that is in favor of putting the government in the role of managing health care.  Our government has enough trouble just trying (and often failing) to oversee the review and approval of pharmaceutical medicines.  Do we really want to expand that oversight to cover dictating what medical treatment options are and are not available?   Do we really think that a Medicare-like program would be scalable and efficient enough to provide reasonable care to those who can’t afford private health insurance?  Do we even think private insurers would survive in a drastically tilted playing field where the government can subsidize their costs with our tax dollars?

There has to be another solution for the long term.

Did you know that health care costs are responsible for over 60% of the personal bankruptcies that are being declared these days?

Health care costs are too high.  No doubt.  But implementing a government run universal care system is not  the answer.  Quite frankly, it is a solution that treats the symptoms of the health care crisis, but not the cause.

Why are health care costs so high?

Many people think the rising costs associated with medical malpractice suits is to blame.  That doctors are passing on the astronomical costs of malpractice insurance through.  That’s some it, sure.

Also, new treatments and medicines are typically more expensive than older methods, so that’s a chunk of the health care costs increase as well.  After all, it cost money to grease the palms of the FDA.  At least for those big pharm companies with the dollars to do so.  Thanks largely to our government’s outdated and onerous approval processes, it costs alot to get new medicines out the door.

But do you want to know what one of the biggest reasons for the spiraling increase in health care costs is?

It’s the growing numbers of diseases caused by the American obesity epidemic.  The treatment of sickness and disease directly related to being overweight is astronomical.  It is estimated that obesity driven health care costs increased by over an inflation adjusted 52% between 2000 and 2007.  This includes increases in costs associated with the treatment of diabetes, hyperlipidemia, and heart disease.

In fact, increases in the prevalence of obesity in the population account for a 14% increase in the total overall health care costs for the same period.

And this doesn’t even account for costs associated with other unhealthy lifestyle choices such as smoking or alcoholism.

If we really want to cut health care costs, we should take responsibility for our own well-being.  Eat healthier. Exercise.  You’ll cut your own medical spending and be doing your part to improve a wasteful and inefficient health care system that needs help.  Just not government help.

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Bonus Babies (Or How I Got My Piece Of The AIG Bailout)

I have a friend who is one of the 400+ AIG employees, current and former, who received one of those “retention” bonuses that everyone is in such an uproar about.  As an aside, why do you pay retention bonuses to people who have left?  Wouldn’t that be more of a “please come back” bonus?

Anyway, my friend’s share of the total $165m that was paid out last week was small, but it was enough for a nice vacation or a decent used car (which he might need as he is no longer employed).

Now, I am not surprised by the public outcry around these bonuses being paid by a company that ran itself into the ground and is only being propped up by Barack Obama’s ever spinning printing press. And I love the way that the same lawmakers that 1) authorized the billions of dollars for the bailout, and 2) selected the management team to go in and run the company, are jumping onto the pile and lambasting AIG for so “frivolously” spending their our money.

But let’s look at the stated rationale for paying out these bonuses. The Federal Government decided to rescue AIG from a certain and deserved corporate death by handing over billions of dollars to be used to keep the company afloat. Why do I say deserved? Because if I start a company, make bad decisions, and consequently go out of business, I don’t expect the government to reward my efforts by handing me a blank check. I fail, I fall, and hopefully I dust myself off and learn to make better decisions the next time around.

So, AIG gets all this cash to keep the doors open. Well, if they are to have any chance of success, they need to keep the only real assets they have left - their key employees. Retention bonuses are a common method that companies use to keep key people during periods of upheaval such as a merger or bankruptcy. So is paying out a chunk of cash to retain valuable assets wrong? Not in theory.  It happens all the time.  So I get that retention bonuses might be needed to keep the employees necessary to fulfill the government’s pipe dream of making AIG self reliant again.

I just find it laughable that all these lawmakers who handed over the money and chose the people to come in and run the company are so vehement and loud in their criticism. Hello?! You’re giving out all this money to these beleaguered companies without demanding a comprehensive plan on how they intend to use it? What do you expect?

If nothing else, the silver lining in all this AIG bonus mess is that public sentiment for the bailouts and the government jugheads who approved them is taking a decidedly nasty turn. Hopefully the seeds of discontent will continue to grow and force some changes.

Oh, my buddy, the AIG bonus baby? He gave me $10. So, I gots me my piece of the bailout pie.

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No Funny Quips - This Just Ticks Me Off

If you don’t need bailout money, you’re doing something wrong

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The Death of Another Good Idea

Panacos Pharmaceuticals, a small biotech developer of viral disease vaccines, will probably not survive through the Summer.

Over the last few years I have invested a good chunk of change into various biotech stocks and funds.  Aside from the obvious distress of watching my portfolio value drop faster than Barack Obama’s approval ratings, I am saddened by the realization that many of these small niche companies will not survive through 2009.  Current estimates say that 60% of the publicly traded biotech firms will run out of money before the end of the year.

It is typically in these small biotech companies where real advancements are made in the fields of medicine and treatment research.  A niche biotech company will typically form around an idea for a new treatment approach for some specific disease or disorder.  Initial funding is usually provided by VC firms, with a public offering to follow if the “idea” can be sold to the investing public.

Then comes the years of development, testing, and approval cycles mandated by the FDA for all new drugs and artificial devices.  If a company can navigate the process and end up with a successful drug or product that does work, then a  big Pharma company will typically step in and partner with or outright buy out the smaller firm at a premium price.  Everyone wins.  Big Pharma gets exclusive rights to sell a new “miracle” drug.  The employees and stockholders of the biotech company make money.  The United States moves forward in the field of medicine.  And maybe some lives are saved, or at least improved.

In the current economic climate, funding is drying up for many of these cure development companies.  No money equals out of business.

It is a shame that so many good ideas and potential scientific breakthroughs may be derailed.

I’ve got an idea.  Instead of bailing out inefficient and mismanaged mortgage companies and banks, why not send some of that money to promising companies that are actually developing products that will potentially save lives?

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Life On Four Wheels

I was watching the movie Wall-E with my son the other day.  In the film, humans living on a massive spaceship have adopted a luxury life style where they spend their lives in personal floating lounge chairs jetting around from place to place.  Over time, they have turned into an obese, inactive population who couldn’t walk even if they wanted to due to bone density loss.

Then last night I saw a commercial for one of those mobility scooters that are typically marketed to the elderly.

“Reclaim your life!”  That was the tag line of the commercial, alluding to the chair’s ability to provide the power of all terrain travel to the older generation.

Now I understand the value of these scooters.  Absolutely I’m all for giving the freedom of movement to anyone who has lost the use of their legs.  But I would venture to say that the vast majority of the people who do use these scooters have two functioning legs that are capable of walking from one place to another.

The Wall Street Journal had an article about these scooters and actually quoted a 37 year old man who they found using one at Disney World.

‘ “I’m pretty healthy,” says the 37-year-old truck driver from Brooklyn, N.Y. “Just lazy, I guess.” ‘

Now even many grocery stores make these scooters available for their shoppers. And let me tell you. I don’t see elderly or disabled people using these things. I see overweight people using the motorized four wheeled chairs on wheels.

I’m pretty sure that the use of these scooters is not improving mobility for most of the people using them. In fact, it’s actually impairing their ability to get around by discouraging the use of their legs. Scooters will become the lazy person’s choice for travel, whether it’s navigating the grocery aisles or getting from room to room in their house.

And like any other muscles, if you don’t use them you lose them.

Welcome to Wall-E world.

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“The Pounds Will Melt Right Off” and Other Diet Miracles

Cookies, grapefruit, and cabbage soup. What do they have in common?

They each are the cornerstone of current diet fads where people are losing dollars, not weight. Fad diets are a money making industry, and it seems like every popular TV “doctor” and fitness “expert” are creating one or hawking one for someone else. Here are a few advertising taglines of some of the more popular diet plans out there.

See if you can identify which diet goes with which blurb.

“Imagine losing 15 pounds a month while eating cookies!!”

“Delicious snacks. Sweet success.”

“It’s not a diet. It’s a healthy, balanced lifestyle”

“Burn fat while you eat!”

“Lose 10 pounds every week!”

“The delicious, doctor designed, foolproof weight-loss plan”

And my personal favorite:

“The diet God originally gave mankind!”

Look, the truth is most diet fads are just that - fads. They come and go and generally are ineffective at providing long term weight control solutions. Pounds do not “melt” off. Grapefruit really doesn’t “burn” fat. And any diet that advises the use of appetite suppressant drugs (Cookie Diet) is just plain dangerous.

The key to consistent weight control is a balanced, healthy diet combined with a vigorous exercise program.

For an interesting quickie analysis of all the current fad diets, check out this report from RNCentral.com

And just to leave this on a humorous note, take a look at this video:

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Little Johnny Needs A Statin

The American Academy of Pediatrics has recommended that children’s cholesterol levels be evaluated for potential early warning signs of heart disease. In some instances, they maintain, prescribing statin drugs to kids with high levels of cholesterol would be warranted and even recommended.

A followup study by the CDC has found that approximately .8% of teens aged 12 to 17 are likely candidates for drug regimens designed to deal with high levels of LDL, the “bad” cholesterol. The study, published in the American Heart Association’s journal Circulation, maintains that, based on a population of 25 million kids in the targeted age group, approximately 200,000 teens are in danger of developing early heart disorders and would potentially benefit from the use of cholesterol management drugs. Candidate kids in the sampling that the study was based on were selected based not only on LDL levels, but also on other risk factors including weight and family history.

This is disturbing on a number of levels.

One, studies have shown that effective lifestyle regimens, including a healthy diet and regular exercise, can reduce the production of LDL cholesterol in the body. Good habits, started early enough, would presumably substantially reduce the build up of plaque that high levels of bad cholesterol can cause over time. In simple terms, be concerned parents and don’t allow pizza and french fries to be staple foods. And get the kid off the couch away from the tv and video games.

Another area of concern? Statins are a relatively new class of drugs. Yes, they do seem to control the onset or progression of heart disease, but no one is really sure why. Statins have been shown to reduce risks of heart disease in people who don’t even have adverse cholesterol numbers, so clearly there are other effects being experienced. Let’s not forget that kids in their teens are still going through significant changes in their bodies. The brain, for example, requires certain levels and types of cholesterol for normal development. No one can conclusively say that the effects that statins have on the body will not interfere with those growth processes during such a critical time in the development of a child.

Is it worth the risks?

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Barack Obama Says Grow Old and Die

Barack Obama’s newly passed stimulus package is supposed to provide a jump start to the economy. Providing tax cuts to stimulate spending and infrastructure projects to stimulate jobs, the 1200+ page bill is being represented as a much needed shot in the arm for the economy.

Well, it’s a shot to the heart for many people. They just don’t know it yet.

Among the hundreds of pages of the bill are a couple of health care provisions that radically change the way the medical field will be allowed to treat patients. Authored by Tom Daschle, the latest in a long line of problematic cabinet nominees, the provisions cover a couple of key areas.

The first is the establishment of a federal system to electronically track and store medical records for “every individual in the United States”. This will allow for the centralization of your health records and, in theory, will eliminate the need for the manual transfer of your records every time you see a new doctor. In addition, duplication of records and erroneous treatment histories should be minimized under this new central tracking system. Again, in theory.

Okay, aside from the potential privacy issues, the creation of a centralized records system is probably a good idea. Nice to know all your records are consistent and accessible to the doctors that need to see them.

But the bill doesn’t stop there.

The bill also provides for the creation of a new federal bureaucracy called the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology. This agency will monitor your medical treatments to ensure that your physician is only providing what the federal government deems appropriate and cost effective. The underlying intent is to cut health care costs by “guiding” your doctor’s decisions around treatment.

I am all for doctors being kept informed of the latest medical developments and treatment options, but not for the federal enforcement of treatment uniformity across the medical profession. Doctors are being told not to think, but to follow what will be regimented step by step treatment options for most any disease or illness.

Who gets hit hardest by this? The elderly.

According to Daschle, reform of the health care system will “not be pain free”. He alludes to the fact that senior citizens should accept the onset of age related conditions instead of seeking treatment for them. Currently, Medicare pays for treatment deemed effective and safe. The stimulus bill provision will change that and implement a cost-effectiveness factor into the treatment options to be offered. In other words, Medicare will no longer cover many of the treatments currently being prescribed to our parents and grandparents.

And who determines these cost-effectiveness standards? Another new federal agency called the Federal Council.

The Federal Council is modeled after a U.K. government agency that establishes treatment standards based on calculations related to condition severity, cost of treatment, and the patient’s expected years left to live.

As an example of how the new U.S. system would work, in 2006 this U.K. agency decreed that elderly patients suffering from macular degeneration would not receive treatment utilizing a costly but effective drug until they actually went blind in one eye. It took three years before public protest forced the agency to reverse that decree.

This is the health care system we are moving to. This is the first of many changes that certain politicians have been trying to push through since the Clinton administration. And the only reason you haven’t heard more about it is because this time they were smart enough to hide the provisions in a massive “we need it now or disaster will befall us” stimulus bill.

Prior to the bill being passed, President Barack Obama said it was “inexcusable and irresponsible” for senators to delay passage. Using guilt and misplaced public sentiment, Barack Obama has set the wheels in motion to nationalize health care in the United States.

The U.S. Constitution states “Bring us your sick, huddled masses”. I guess we’ll now need to add “Just don’t expect to get any better”.

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