Health Care BS

Paul Hsieh points out that lifestyle regulation must inevitably follow in the wake of government-run health care. And this isn’t a matter of speculation. It’s already happening in the Land of the Rising Sun:

Imagine a country where the government regularly checks the waistlines of citizens over age 40. Anyone deemed too fat would be required to undergo diet counseling. Those who fail to lose sufficient weight could face further “reeducation” and their communities subject to stiff fines. Is this some nightmarish dystopia? No, this is contemporary Japan.

And what is the justification for this government intrusion into the day-to-day lives of the ordinary Japanese citizen?

The Japanese government argues that it must regulate citizens’ lifestyles because it is paying their health costs.

And if you think this can’t happen here, I would refer you to the avalanche of obesity “studies” that our health authorities are already promulgating in the media and in school systems. The problem is that these “studies” are hopelessly flawed. As Scientific American puts it:

An increasing number of scholars have begun accusing obesity experts, public health officials and the media of exaggerating the health effects of the epidemic of overweight and obesity.

So, if a growing number of scholars question the data, why do public health officials continue to publish them as if they were handed down on stone tablets from on high? Well, my tinfoil hat tells me that they are preparing us for the day when we will have to submit to the waistline police.

Sound far fetched? Tell that to the Japanese.

UPDATE:

Ed Morrissey has picked up Hsieh’s editorial and adds that there are precedents for the kind of nanny state behavior implied by the whole anti-obesity movement. The Nazis were very big on state-imposed diet guidelines. For more on that, I recommend Liberal Fascism, by Jonah Goldberg.