The lower prices stem from the Medicare negotiation program created under the Biden administrationās Inflation Reduction Act.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services on TuesdayĀ announcedĀ lower prices onĀ 15 costly prescription drugsĀ under Medicare, including Ozempic and Wegovy.
The price cuts come through the Medicare drug price negotiation program created underĀ the Inflation Reduction Act, which Joe Biden signed into law in 2022.
Itās different from Donald TrumpāsĀ āmost favored nationā drug pricing approach, which relies on executive orders and voluntary deals with drugmakers ā not legislation. Trump recently announced suchĀ a deal with Novo Nordisk, the maker of Ozempic and Wegovy, to lower the price of the drugs in exchange for tariff relief.
Oh boy, if you want an honest answer to the whys and hows of the obesity epidemic, well, the truth is āitās complicatedā.
Youād be surprised at how much of it stems from government policy.
In their drive to subsidize the milk and dairy industry, the feds partnered with food companies to figure out ways to stick cheese in fucking EVERYTHING. To the point where feds embedded at pizza joints co-developed the idea of stuffed crust pizza.
https://fee.org/articles/why-does-the-federal-government-have-14-billion-pounds-of-american-cheese-stockpiled/
āTo help sell its surplus in the 1990s, the National Dairy Promotion Board created Dairy Management Incorporated, a semi-public marketing branch of the USDA funded through government ācheckoffā fees from dairy producers. This agency gave us the āGot Milk?ā campaign and a host of popular fast food menu items, including Dominoās seven-cheese pizzas and Taco Bellās very cheesy Quesalupa. A 2017 Bloomberg Businessweek investigation called the group of chemists and nutritionists the āIlluminati of cheese.ā āThe checkoff [program] puts DMIās agents insideĀ Burger King,Ā Dominoās,Ā McDonaldās, Pizza Hut, and Wendyās, where theyāre privy to each restaurant chainās most closely guarded trade secrets,āĀ writesĀ Clint Rainey.ā
But thatās just one angle on the problem, another is the rapid increase in the use of high fructose corn syrup, not just as a sugar replacement, but as an addition to, again, fucking everything.
In the drive for ālow fatā foods, producers started adding HFCS to enhance the flavor that was lacking in low fat products.
And, again, federal subsidies for the corn industry is where a lot of this is coming from:
https://www.mountsinai.org/files/ISMMS/Assets/Media/Profiles/MS_OpEd Ad_Obesity_final.pdf
āConsumption of HFCS has increased tenfold since 1974.ā
Subsidies like this also drove the federal dietary guidelines rather than actual nutrition. When I was a kid they talked about the ā4-4-3-2ā plan. Every day, 4 servings of meat or dairy, 4 servings of fruit, 3 servings of vegetables, 2 servings of starch.
That was later replaced by the āFood Pyramidā, and TBH, I have no idea what it is now.
https://farmaction.us/2022/08/04/putting-our-money-where-our-mouths-should-be-the-great-contradiction-between-u-s-food-subsidies-and-dietary-guidelines/
And donāt even get me started on things like āfood desertsā, weāll be here all day:
https://www.news-medical.net/news/20240922/Living-in-food-deserts-during-early-childhood-raises-long-term-obesity-risk.aspx
Which is quite a lot of words to say eating too much no-nutrition highly processed fast food/easy-prep bullshit.
Iām not disagreeing in the least that the mass of HFCS and salt laden garbage is a big driver of it. However, those things only are allowed to become the staples of our diets that they have because people are too complacent and willing to open the freezer rather than do a bit of whole food kitchen work.
Iāve made it a point to learn what I can to avoid the loss of capability to make decent food for ourselves. As I say to my kids, I worry thereāll be a day when Grandmaās famous thanksgiving pie comes in a box from Sarah Lee.
Agreed, but the problem is honest attempts to avoid it. Unless you regularly look at labels, youād be SHOCKED at all the products this crap is in.
Bread has HFCS. Ketchup. Itās literally everywhere.
Try going down the frozen food aisle at your local grocery store and notice all the stuff has cheese.
Yes, consumption is up, but the reason consumption is up is that itās ubiquitous. And the reason for it isnāt that people are choosing it, itās being placed in the products people choose because the government is subsidizing those industries.
Itās super hard to tell people āWell, just make healthier choicesā when 80% of available choices are unhealthy or 100% if weāre talking affordable choices.
https://www.fao.org/newsroom/detail/healthy-diets-remain-unaffordable-for-a-third-of-the-world-s-population/en