Public Health option and my thoughts

I've been busy writing, but y'all should check out the new White House website clarifying their proposed public health option. I think it's a fabulous idea, given the fact that this information has not been able to be dispersed through typical channels, due to counterproductive disruptions (at the 'town-hall' meetings), media spinning, and strategic misinformations put out by conservative politicians and pundits alike. Here's what I think:

1. Decent health care should be a guaranteed right (ideally for everyone, regardless of birthplace, but certainly in this country for citizens and workers).

2. Preventive care should be the concern of the government: it's our tax dollars that pay for the treatment of diseases and problems which could have been prevented.

2a. The government should turn their backs on the food industry lobby. They want us to buy their products and get addicted to them, regardless of how much they hurt us in the process (oooh, but on a side note, someone should do some actuarial studies on the effect of the modern food industry on the lifespan of the consumer - in terms of pure profit, it doesn't benefit the food industry if they are losing years of product consumption because their consumers are dying earlier due to diseases caused in part by their products).

2b. The government should regulate the hell out of the food industry - I'm talking no more trans fats (and full disclosure on food labels, none of this 'rounding down' shit), no more MSG (or MSG-like neurotoxic additives), and get all that processed soy out da biz!

2c. The government should wake the hell up and realize that xenoestrogenic and antiandrogenic chemicals in our water - which are detectable but not filtered out in modern water treatment plants - are harming us! We need better filtering, better testing, and, finally, DISCLOSURE on the uptake rates and effects of these chemicals and the levels in our local water supplies.

3. A note on definitions: if the government *were* planning to institute "death panels" as part of their health care plan, and if the government *were* then planning to euthanize all the unsavory grannies in our country, this would not be an example of "eugenics". Why? Because eugenics aims to get rid of the "unsavories" *before* they reproduce, eliminating their contribution to the gene pool. These old people are presumably well beyond the age of reproduction, and they have probably already passed their genes down to the next generation. Thus, killing them off would not be eugenics. Ha!