lunchtime reading

Interesting op-ed in the NYT by (who else) Michael Pollan. Yes, I'm totally his groupie.

He discribes an amusing scenario: if we manage to pass the type of health insurance reform that would require insurers to accept everyone, not just the healthy (i.e., cheap to insure)... then they would have an avid interest in everyone's health--including the growing obese population.

And, what would happen to our food industry--that obesity-creating junk food juggernaut? Pollan argues that the insurance industry would probably find it in their own interest to take on the farm/junk food lobby... perhaps they'd use their might to enact healthy school lunch reform and a general healthy-eating push for everyone. Kind of like how the insurance industry took on big tobacco, he says.

Imagine that, one hulking industry taking on another, for the good of our health.